


Cracks in the surface

by pamymex3girl



Series: Big Bang Stories [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Episode: s01e13 The Parting of the Ways, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pamymex3girl/pseuds/pamymex3girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events on satallite five Jack, Rose and the Doctor keep travelling together. But what happened on that satellite, and the secrets that the Doctor keeps are threatening to tear them apart. Between strange dreamworlds, kidnappings and fights it seems their relationship is on teh verge of collapsing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the sfx big bang on livejournal. Prompt was given by whogate and was, essentially, this: 3Prompt: Jack didn't get left behind on Satellite 5. Instead he traveled with the Doctor and Rose through season 2. While closing the gap in Doomsday, Jack gets sucked into the void and spit out in Cardiff where he gets picked up by Torchwood (either present day or in the past). I would love to see the Doctor and Rose trying to get Jack back and Jack with Torchwood as he waits for them to find him. Whether the Doctor regenerated is up to the author. - Jack/Doctor or OT3 
> 
> As it turns out the fic didn't exactly follow the prompt but this is what came out of it. 
> 
> Implied Jack/Nine/Rose but nothing explicit. 
> 
> Artwork was made by mella68. 
> 
> I'd like to thank my original beta and my best friend who was so kind to take over and check the story when my original beta (and the one that followed) suddenly somewhat dissapeared, real life and all. 
> 
> Hope someone likes the story.

The silence is deafening, the darkness _too_ dense.

This is the first thing Jack notices when he wakes suddenly, desperately gasping for the air that is somehow escaping him – even if logically it shouldn’t because he is most definitely _alive._ It’s always been that way, ever since his first resurrection – though of that one he doesn’t remember much – but Jack supposes _that_ doesn’t really matter. He knows how he’ll feel for the next moments – he’s shaking, he has a headache and he’s completely disorientated – it has, after all, happened to him before. It has happened too many times for him to be fully comfortable with his new-found immortality, if it is at all possible to be comfortable with such a turn of events anyway. But he knows because every revival – at least that’s what the Doctor called them when he _finally_ explained everything to him – is the same and yet different at the same time, not that that makes any sense at all. He doesn’t really care for the differences of similarities, not at all, he knows the Doctor does but then he is the kind of person who’d be curious about e _verything –_   a feet which has gotten them into trouble too many times to count. If at all possible Jack would prefer never to go through it, even if at times it could be helpful, because it was awkward and difficult to explain – if one could find a way to explain it a _t all;_ and besides it really, really _hurts._

It also, as proven by his current situation, could be quite dangerous.

After all one could find oneself anywhere after a revival, for he’ll have no memories of the in-between – which has been proven could be as short as seconds or as long as days at least according to the Doctor – so he’ll be unable to respond to any situation immediately, which is kind of unfortunate. Like now, for instance, Jack knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he should have checked his surroundings the second he woke but the disorientation and the headache made him unable to do it, at least for now. Once he is calm enough to focus however he comes to the conclusion that his in some kind of prison cell, or more precisely a dungeon. By the looks of it, it is the coldest, darkest and smallest cell he has ever had the misfortune to land in – and _that_ is really saying something considering the amount of times he’s been arrested, which, as he kept telling the Doctor, really isn’t his fault, at least not most of the time. How is one, after all, supposed to know or even remember _all_ the laws and rules of _all_ of time and space?

Which, as he thinks about it, might be simply what happened.

He is stuck in the past after all – and if he ever gets his hands on the Doctor with his ridiculously complicated plans he might actually strangle him – so it is possible that he has broken some kind of old Victorian law and has, simply, been arrested for it. It might be what happened, but probably not, considering when they brought him here he would have been dead and as such a morgue would have been a more logical conclusion – that actually makes him wonder if he has an autopsy will he still come back to life?.  So he hasn’t been arrested, at least not by normal authorities, besides there is something incredibly _wrong_ about this place and though he tries Jack can’t quite put his finger on what that is. It does however make him feel as if he should run, which is strange because Captain Jack Harkness does _not_ run away, at least not without knowing what’s going on. The rattling of the chains that are meant to keep him in place is loud, too loud, but he’s grateful for the sound – any sound really – that could penetrate the dense silence. The room, cell, in which he finds himself is small, too small actually to be a normal prison cell, which probably means it’s something else altogether.

He closes his eyes, despite the darkness, in an attempt to figure out _what_ happened.

All Jack remembers, is a small child and perhaps a carriage, and then nothing, which more than likely means that he got hit by said carriage, although there is a possibility that something else happened altogether. He remembers, briefly, managing to get to the boy and saving him, but he can’t remember what – if anything – came next, which logically means he died. Died and then somehow, for some reason, ended up here as opposed to the morgue. And that means, logically, that however has him here knows about his immortality or at least that there is something _different_ about him, something which can’t be good. He’s learned, after all, that when humans find out about his immortality the reactions are _never_ good – in fact some of his most painful deaths happen in those situations – so he’s not exactly thrilled about _that_ prospect.

Once he realizes he won’t remember anything else he opens his eyes and tries to get used to the lack of light. The door is right in front of him and from there, he quickly realizes, comes the only light, from the hole in the door – just big enough to look outside – and if he can get to it he might be able to see where he is. It’s not until he starts to move that he realizes the strangest thing about the whole thing: there are no guards; nobody is watching him, which implies that whoever brought him here is either stupid – something which might at a later date prove useful – or he doesn’t consider Jack a threat, which is more problematic of course.

‘There you are, I see you have finally joined the world of the living again.’

The voice catches him completely by surprise mostly because he a _ssumed_ he was alone and at first he thinks it’s probably that guard he didn’t think exist. Except a guard would never sound like that – defeated and small and so soft – so it can’t be, it must, therefore, be another prisoner, and a girl at that. And then he sees her, right across from him, looking at him with haunted eyes. _How long_ , he thinks, _has she been here? How long does one need to be locked in a place like this before one loses hope? How long because his eyes become that haunted? Or is it, perhaps, just a trait of her? And why did she phrase it like that? Did she, perhaps, know about his immortality? Or was it simply a turn of phrase?_

‘Where are we?’

‘I’m not sure, I think we’re still in England, but we might not be. It’s not like it matters. I’m sorry, this is the last place you’ll ever know.’

‘Right, we’ll see about that. Who’s keeping us here? Are there guards?’

‘I don’t know who’s keeping us, I’ve seen someone but I couldn’t tell you who he is. As for the guards, sometimes there are people, mostly to bring us food, but otherwise there’s nobody. It’s not like we can escape. Many before you have tried, none have succeeded.’

‘So there are other prisoners then?’

‘There used to be, but that’s a long time ago. They’re all gone now; it’s just you and me.’

‘Well I’m Captain Jack Harkness, and who, may I ask, are you?’

‘Nobody you should be concerned about.’

‘Fine, whatever, I am finding a way out of here. And if I don’t succeed my friends will come to find me. They’ll get me out.’

‘You’re not the first to think or say that, you know. But in all the time I have been here, and I have been here for a very long time, no-one has ever come.’

‘You don’t know my friends, they’ll come. How long have you been here anyway?’

‘Long enough to know and accept the truth, my friend, you’re not getting out. Nobody is.’

She’s gone then, as fast as she appeared, and he’s tempted, oh so tempted, to call her back, because talking to someone is better than sitting in the silence. But then he thinks that perhaps the silence, to come up with a plan, is better than talking to a girl – if she is a girl she could be an alien – who has, evidently, given up all hope. He can’t really blame her, God only knows how long she’s been here, but he’s not giving up, he’s not – because the thought of spending all of eternity, seeing as he can’t die, in this place is not something he’d like to do. She, and he really should try to find out what her name is, had said there were others, once, which means that they got away – though he admits it didn’t sound as if they did so alive – but it also means that whoever is keeping him prisoner isn’t exactly new to the game, whatever the game is.

Jack sits down, closes his eyes and tries to come up with a plan.

Even if it doesn’t work, which is a possibility if not a probability, he’ll still get out. Because they’ll come, his Doctor and his Rose, they will come and save him – and all the others that are trapped here – and then they’ll go on, traveling across time and space.

They _have_ to.

He has to believe that, even if sometimes a flicker of doubt enters his mind, it _has_ been months since he fell in the void after all. Perhaps they won’t come, perhaps they can’t find out where he is or if he’s anywhere. They’ll come, he tells himself, if they can’t they’ll come, but what if they can’t? He’ll get out, he knows, even if they never come he refuses to stay here.

He’ll just wait until someone comes for him and then he’ll make his move.

And he’ll take the girl with those haunted eyes with him.

 

 


	2. Prologue

It’s scary how silent the satellite is considering how full of live it was just an hour ago.

Jack wakes suddenly, gasping for air, not really sure where he is, not remembering how he got here at all. It takes a moment, a minute he thinks though it could be more, before he realizes that he is in fact _alive_ and it takes a full minute before he realizes something else: he _shouldn’t_ be. He’s not sure what exactly happened, or how he came to be alive again, but he does remember this. He remembers standing in front of the Daleks, arms spread wide, as they exterminated him. He can still feel it too, how much it hurt, so it is not possible that they missed – which doesn’t sound plausible anyway. Despite being shot by Daleks he’s still, inexplicably, _here._

It doesn’t make sense, but then perhaps that’s just because of the headache.

Once it subsides, and he really hopes it subsides soon because it is worse than anything he’s felt before, it might make sense. And if he can’t make sense of it then surely The Doctor will. And then it hits him, the Doctor! He’s still here somewhere, hopefully, and he runs to where he thinks the man is. The dust around him he realizes must be the Daleks which means, probably, that the Doctor went through with the plan but then how is he even alive? The Delta Wave would have killed them all, including him and probably the Doctor, so why isn’t he dead? Had the Doctor, at the eleventh hour, found another way? Why hadn’t he said something then?

Something had happened, something he can’t quite understand, but something else had happened.

He remembers how it ended and that’s where he’ll find him, he knows – he remembers Rose, beautiful and so sure that the Doctor would find a way out and the Doctor, so resigned to, what he must have assumed, was the end of him if not all of them.

There he is, Jack thinks, the Doctor, he hadn’t left him, of course he hasn’t – he quickly thinks – the Doctor would _never_ leave him, he loves him. And even if he wanted to Rose would probably kill him – like that time they went to Egypt and the Doctor _had_ left him behind, though it had admittedly been part of the plan, and Rose had been _furious._ At first with the Doctor for thinking that leaving him behind was a good plan and then with the both of them for coming up with a plan without her, though since he had been in a prison and Rose had been the new best friend of the Pharaoh’s daughter he’s not sure how they were supposed to tell her what the plan was. In retrospect it had been highly amusing.  

Still the Doctor could have left him here, by accident, if he’d assumed Jack was dead.

And he had been dead, at least he thinks he was dead, and now somehow he wasn’t, which still doesn’t make sense at all. It takes a moment before the Doctor even notices he’s there and Jack just wants to run to him and hug and kiss him but the headache is making everything harder. In that one second that he first sees him dozens of emotions flicker across his face in, shock among them. There’s happiness as well and then, briefly, an emotion Jack can’t quite comprehend. It’s not anger exactly, more a mixture of disappointment and frustration and he thinks, though he’s not sure, _pity. What had happened,_ Jack wonders, _in those few moments between the extermination and his coming back, why would the Doctor pity him?_

Then the moment is gone and his grin is as wide as ever and Jack can’t help but smile back.

Only then does he realize that the Tardis is here – and how did that even happen? – and Rose is lying unconscious in front of it. What had happened?

‘ _Captain, help me get her inside.’_

The headache is gone as soon as he walks into the Tardis, and he realizes, briefly, that that is not the first time it happened – she seems to have some way to clear their headaches.

‘So Doc, tell me, what happened? I thought you’d send her home? And how the hell did we get out of that?’

 

*~*

He feels empty when the vortex leaves him to return to where it belongs.

It is not a power he thought he’d ever feel, a power nobody was ever supposed to have, something that would kill any human that even tried, and Rose was very lucky it had not in fact killed her, and – if it were used long enough – would, eventually, kill a Time Lord as well. He supposes that’s something at least, he won’t die or regenerate, the vortex hadn’t been inside him long enough for that. Rose would, in time, be fine as well; there would be no future problems. Perhaps some side-effects, he’s not exactly sure nobody had ever done something like that before; he supposes in time they’ll see.

They’d survived, somehow, they had fought the emperor of the Daleks and they had _lived._

Rose, his beautiful and brave Rose, had found her way back to him and she was alive, as was he and he should be g _rateful_ if not _happy._ But he can’t, for he remembers, all those humans had not survived, _Jack_ had not survived. He’d been the silent observer, hearing everything, including the Captains passionate speech to an unwilling audience – and that, he realizes, was Jack in the face of danger: a leader willing to do anything to protect and save. He was a hero, more so than he had been – for he, the Doctor, the oncoming storm, had _promised_ he had a plan and then, at the last moment, not gone through with it. He’d sacrificed his friend, Jack, for a plan he hadn’t finished, he’d been, in the end, not a hero but a coward.

He’ll have to tell Rose, somehow, he’ll have to tell her and somehow they had to go on.

Later, when he’s alone, he’ll be able to give into his grieve, but not now, perhaps not ever. Footsteps fast approaching catch him by surprise because everyone should be dead, but then perhaps someone had managed to _hide_ and was now looking for a way home.

And then he’s there, the Captain, suddenly in front of him and he just s _tops._ Because he should be dead, logically, and yet he’s not for he is there. Somehow he made it, even though it doesn’t make sense, and his first instinct is happiness and gratitude but then he feels it, suddenly. Something is w _rong._ Jack is _wrong._ He can feel it, sense it, from across the room and he wants to grab Rose and run away, and never look back. But he can’t because this is Jack and he loves him and he can’t just leave him here alone. Whatever happened, whatever went wrong, he’ll find out and then he’ll fix it and everything will be alright.

He hopes.

‘Captain, help me get her inside.’

The urge to get as far away from him as possible grow stronger the closer he gets and he has to fight the instinct to shut the door in Jack’s face. Because he will not leave a friend, standing on a satellite all alone with no way home, not if he can help it.

How did Jack even survive? How is he even here?

He’d heard him die, heard as he stood in front of the Daleks and gave a customary cheeky reply to the Daleks ‘Exterminate’, defiant even in the face of death. Then there had been silence and the crushing realization, and the pain that went with it, that he would never hear Jack’s voice again, never see him smile again, because he was gone. And all because Jack had believed in the Doctor, never truly considering that he might be wrong.

Despite that here he was, firing of questions, staring at him waiting for answers.

But how?

‘I bring life.’

Suddenly Roses words, while possessed with the vortex, make much more sense. Jack _had_ died but Rose, so human, had given him life and brought him back, with all the consequences that entailed.

‘Doc, you alright?’

‘Yes, of course I am. What were you saying?’

‘How did we win? And I thought you’d send her home.’

‘I did, but she came back. She looked into the heart of the Tardis and absorbed the Time Vortex and then used its powers to destroy the Daleks.’

It’s not a great explanation, he knows, and he can tell by the look on his face that Jack has more questions, more he needs to know. But he also knows he won’t ask now, will wait until some time has passed, and for that he’s grateful because it gives him time to figure out what happened as well.

_‘So where to now?’_

‘Well I was thinking Barcelona, you ever been?’

 

*~*

 

She wakes to loud voices, discussing something she’s not privy to yet.

It is somewhat comforting to wake up to the voices of the people you love, even if you don’t know what they’re talking about. She’s in the Tardis she realizes and Jack and the Doctor are talking about Barcelona, she thinks – perhaps that is where they are going next, though why they’d go to Spain and not somewhere else is beyond her, actually it’s not in Jack’s case because he’s _jack._

 ‘What happened?’

There are times that they surprise her, simply by how alike they can be – like now when they turn to her as one both grinning.

‘What do you remember?’

The Doctor’s answer is customary, it’s what he _always_ asks – sometimes she wonders how much he’s keeping hiding from her – and admittedly a very good question. She remembers realizing he’d tricked her and hugging Mickey and trying to open the heart of the Tardis and that ridiculous yellow truck her mother brought. She remembers succeeding in opening the heart…or not?

 ‘Some sort of singing?’

It was, Rose admits, a strange question, one that doesn’t make particular sense, but she does remember some sort of singing.

‘You know I remember some sort of singing to, but I thought it was my imagination. No, not singing, some sort of humming, just a melody, it’s hard to explain.’

Jack’s not making sense yet she understands him, because that is the way she feels, she c _an’t_ explain anything. A melody, comforting, calming and safe.

‘Well of course you did, I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.’

The Doctor’s joking, she hopes, and she admits she has to smile at the mental image of the Daleks running from his singing – which wouldn’t be so far-fetched everyone would run from that sound, though Jack her mother singing would have been more effective. Jack pulls her up and in the same movement in a hug as well, which is just so Jack. She’d been so scared she’d never see him again, afraid that he was right and this was the end.

But here they were, together, in the Tardis, ready for the next adventure.

And then she remembers and in one movement she’s pulled away and hit him, though not too hard.

‘What, Rose what the hell?’

‘You knew didn’t you, you were in it. The both of you decided just to send me home didn’t you?’

‘No! I didn’t find out until after you were already gone!’

‘But you agreed, didn’t you?’

‘Well… Rose…I…Doc?’

He turns to the Doctor and Rose can almost see his brain working, trying to figure out which answer would make her hurt them _less._

‘We just wanted you to be safe.’

‘Well next time let me decide.’

They say nothing then and she knows, instantly, that they won’t, if the situation should arise again they’d send her home again, no matter what she said.

‘So where are we going?’

*~*

‘Barcelona!’

‘As in Spain?’

‘Oh no, Spain is boring, no it’s a planet far away where the dogs have no noses.’

And then they’re laughing, and joking and talking like before, as if nothing happened to them at all. Barcelona, he’d been there once before, the planet where dogs have no noses – strange image that is – but nothing ever happens, apart from all the partying. They really do need that, Jack thinks, especially after the day they had. First Japan and then that game station, who couldn’t use a party ever that? Still despite the laughter and his determination not to think too much about what happened, not yet at least, he can’t help but notice that not everything is as alright as it seems.

The Doctor, for example, won’t look at him.

It was almost as if he was afraid but of what Jack can’t quite tell. He was also avoiding touching him, which Jack admits he wouldn’t have noticed if the battle hadn’t put him on high alert – and he _knows_ Rose hasn’t caught on. He was moving around, constantly, every time Jack came near, as if he couldn’t stand to be next to him. Perhaps it was noting, Jack thinks, perhaps he was simply being paranoid and everything was just a coincidence and he was blowing it out of proportion.

That is all it was, probably.

It’s logical, he thinks, to be a bit paranoid – considering that in the last day they’d been tricked into playing a deadly version of reality games and fought of a Dalek army.

It’s nothing really, no need to dwell on it.

*~*

 

In Barcelona the sun always shines and the people are always dancing.

Like right now, for instance, and Rose admits that it _could_ be Spain – except for the aliens and the dogs with no noses, which is one of the strangest things she’s ever seen. This, right here, is what she needed, what they all needed, after the day they had. Something as silly as dogs with no noses. They don’t stay long for they were too tired, or at least she and Jack were she’s still not sure whether the Doctor a _ctually_ sleeps, never mind him getting tired.

She realized, as they ran into the Tardis laughing, that the Doctor wasn’t joining in the fun.

Instead he was silent, thinking about something, and every now and then he kept glancing at Jack as if there were something going on there, something she had missed.

Maybe, Rose thinks, he was just thinking of the other Time Lords.

*~*

 

He can still hear them laugh even though they sleep now.

The television is still playing and he’s watching one of those silly shows that always makes them laugh like crazy. The exhaustion had finally taken over and they, his two loves, had finally fallen asleep. He wants to join them, lie down and hold them close, but he doesn’t. For he can’t stop thinking about it, about Jack, about how wrong he is, how he makes him pull him away, recoil in f _ear._ Jack is wrong now, the Doctor can sense it, but he’s not sure what he is now.

Immortality seems logical but he hopes he’s wrong.

For immortality is not a gift, which is what most people think, but a curse and Jack does not deserve to go through it, not at all. Perhaps he’s wrong but the only way to figure it out is to test the theory.

Not something he’s willing to do.

He should, consequently, force himself to act normal because it’s not Jack’s fault that this happened to him and it’s not Rose’s fault either.


	3. Chapter 2

It happened three days after they left Satellite 5.

At least Rose thinks that that’s how much time passed; it was extremely difficult at times to tell how much time passed from inside the Tardis. She thinks, briefly, that she’s been on board the Tardis for maybe a year and Jack has been with them for six months, but it might be more or even less. That, she thinks, is the result of time travel. It’s not something she really thinks about, after all what does it matter? They can land a week after she left or more and the only reason she ever stops to think about it is to wonder how old she really is ( is she, she wonders, a year or two older?)

Jack was the one who decided to put the Tardis on random.

One of the Doctor’s ideas, so even he didn’t know where they’d end up, so that there was some element of surprise left – if only for a second. The first time she’d put it on random she’d landed them in Ancient Greece – which had fun until that alien tried to eat them – and Jack had landed them inside a bathhouse, which was really so Jack. This time, however, it’s the Doctor who pulls the lever and she thinks, later, that that might be why they ended in such a strange place.

The mist was obscuring their view of the city and Rose wonders, briefly, if perhaps they should just leave.

‘Doctor where are?’

‘I’m not sure, never been here before. Captain what do you think?’

‘I have no clue, it is strange though, nobody appears to be here. What do you think that’s about.’

‘Don’t know. Let’s find out.’

Rose takes their hands, out of habit but mostly because she’s afraid to lose them in the thick mist, as they make their way to the city together.

Then they’re gone, suddenly, inexplicably, and not just them e _verything_ is gone.

All that’s left is the path she’s on.

 _Oh no,_ Rose thinks, _not again._

 

*~*

 

Later, much later, if somebody should ask him he would not be able to tell them _what_ exactly happened.

One second he’d been holding Rose’s hand the next she was gone; the both of them, and everything around him had gone with them. For a moment Jack wonders if there had been anything in the first place. It’s not the first time; he tells himself, it had happened on the satellite as well – though admittedly that thought wasn’t very comforting. But that time there had been a warning sign, the white light, and he’d felt some kind of pulling.

This time however there was nothing, they were just _gone._

And somehow, whatever had happened, had left him standing on, what he thinks, is a dessert. Just a second ago, or what he thinks was a second ago, he’d been standing in front of a city and now there was nothing but sand all around him. He feels empty and alone and abandoned. This, apart from the abandoned, is how he’s been feeling ever since the satellite; ever since the Doctor had begun ignoring him and he still doesn’t understand why.

For one second he thinks that the Doctor has left him behind.

But then he realizes that that doesn’t make sense, not at all, so he dismisses the thought. The mist, he suddenly realizes, is still clinging around him, which considering he’s in a dessert doesn’t make sense at all – but then nothing does. Slowly he makes his way across the sand but it doesn’t actually appear as though he’s moving.

It is, Jack realizes with a jolt, as if he’s stuck in some bizarre dream.

And then, suddenly, he’s there in front of him, far, far away, the Doctor with his leather jacket.

‘Doctor! Doc! Wait! It’s me Jack! Just wait!’

And he’s running but he’s not running at the same time and the Doctor disappears and he’s suddenly alone again. Perhaps, Jack thinks, he’d never been there, if this was just some kind of dream it makes sense after all. And if he really is somehow dreaming without sleeping than this is, without a doubt, the strangest world he’s ever ended up. Which is saying something.

He’d been thinking about the Doctor ignoring him before they stepped out of the Tardis, and he’d ended up in alone in a large empty dessert. Then he thought of the Doctor again and he’d suddenly been there. Perhaps that is the way it worked, just like a dream, perhaps if he thought Tardis and safety he would simply go back.

A child’s laughter breaks the silence.

If this is a dream, which is a strange thought, then his sub consciousness – which had already conjured up a dessert and the Doctor – had now conjured up a mysterious child. A child which he could not yet see only hear but he knows, he knows, he’s heard that laughter somewhere before – it’s a sound that makes his heart clench together in pain, even if he can’t quite, at the moment, understand _why._

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, he needs to find the others and get home.

So he must move, no matter if he actually makes advances, but perhaps the answer is simply to move backwards instead of forwards. So he turns to walk back to where he, thinks, he came from and it’s easier, he’s actually moving. And then sound returns and he hears something that can only be a war and the child’s laughter from before, that had made his heart clench, had turned to screams. So he runs only to stop as he finds himself standing in front of the too small child.

Gray.

Never, in all the time he had travelled, had he stopped thinking about the younger brother he’d loved so much, the brother that had mattered more than his own life. He remembers too the way Gray had clung to him, holding his hand tightly as Jack pulled him forwards in an attempt to get away from whatever it was that was attacking their home town. Gray hadn’t fought, hadn’t argued, he’d believed Jack could bring him to safety, despite the fact that he too didn’t know what was going on.

It was the one time in his life he _should_ have succeeded.

But he’d failed.

It’s not a dream, he realizes, it’s a _nightmare._ He remembers how Gray’s hand suddenly slipped away and then _nothing._ He woke later bleeding and shaking and, worst of all, alone. He’d looked for him everywhere, but had been unable to find him, so eventually he made his way home, scared, hoping against hope that Gray had just gone home. He still doesn’t know what exactly happened, beyond that Gray was gone and dead.

The house had been deserted, his father had died battling the creatures and his mother was gone.

And his brother was dead.

 _That_ is all he really remembers about it, all he really knows, and he’s never stopped thinking about it, not at all.

And then he hears them, all around him, those same creatures and he thinks, idly, that he probably brought them here – if his theory is correct of course – it’s his fault. Or the Doctors who was, after all the one who brought them here. That isn’t logical, he knows, but he doesn’t want to remember this, doesn’t want to see this and he really, really needs to blame _someone._ He wants to run, despite the fact that it’s probably a dream, but he can’t, not with Gray standing there, crying. So he reaches out grabs his hand and pulls him along.

Jack _knows_ he can’t save Gray, for he died many years ago.

But it’s an instinct, ingrained deep in him, to protect his little brother, even if it’s just his imagination. And so they run, like so long ago – like he did when he was a child, much too young for the task given to him, and he’d run until he couldn’t, until he felt him slip away forever. There’s a bridge, suddenly, in front of him – and why, he thinks, would there be a goddamn bridge in a dessert? – and he knows if they make it to the other side they’ll be safe, even as he accepts that he can’t actually save Gray.

But his brother slips away like so long ago and he turns to find there is nothing he can do.

That may actually be what happened then too, but he doesn’t know, it’s not like the missing two years that are forever gone though, he thinks this memory he just suppresses, unwilling to ever see it again.

It won’t be the same this time, he vows, even if it’s not real.

He moves between the creatures and his long lost brother, determined to protect him – even if he’s just a figment of his imagination. What happens first he does not know, but there is a pan and he falls and as he turns, back to where Gray was a moment ago, he realizes he’s gone and like before he’s taken everything with him.

He’s left with nothing but the memories of the brother he couldn’t save.

His life too slips away and far, far away he hears a strange humming sound.

A melody.

*~*

 

Since Rose has stepped on the Tardis she has seen many things.

But _this_ was definitely new.

It wasn’t so much the separation or the fact that her friends were gone – really _that_ happened before, just three days ago in fact – but the w _ay_ it happened. No explanation, no warning, no reason, just one second they were laughing and holding hands, the next everything was gone and she was the only one left. She supposes that the chances of getting separated when one travels with the Doctor are greater but still this was just plain _weird._ Seriously though if anyone made her play a game she might scream but then it didn’t seem like anyone was here at all so that would probably (hopefully) not happen.

There’s nothing but the path stretching out in front of her.

Only one way to go is forwards.

And she thinks, suddenly, of _the_ dream, from so long; the one she had honestly almost forgotten. When she was a child, a small one, she’d had this dream, always the same one. She used to wake screaming and her mother would run in and hold her and tell her its okay and it’s just a dream and there are no monsters here. And she’d wanted to say, then and always, but there are no monsters in the dream either, just a path and emptiness. But she didn’t because even as a child she realized it _didn’t_ make sense. She’d walked the path in her dreams, unable to go backwards because there was no path there, just walking and walking, nothing happened, nobody came. Then, eventually, _he_ came, but she’s never known who he was because she never sees his face, just his back.

They walk the path, one after the other, without ever seeing each other.

Her mother’s friend, the only one she’d told, said the man might be her father and it was all about her not knowing him.

Back then it made sense to her.

And here she was again, all grown-up, and now it didn’t make sense, because she wasn’t sleeping and she did know her father now. Perhaps the mist, this world, had somehow created this, pulling the dream from her sub consciousness to play with her, haunt her. It was possible, it wouldn’t be the first time – a memory of another world with an imaginary Doctor comes to mind. But if this wasn’t a dream, which wouldn’t be logical, then she could die if she took the wrong step, so forwards was the only way to go.

As a child the dream ended when the path ended, when she’d take the last step and fell into the darkness and the she’d wake, screaming.

She didn’t want to think of that, the possibility that _that_ might be the only way to end this, and she thinks when she finds her boys and their Tardis she’s going to make sure they never go near this world again. There was a man here too, suddenly, but as before she didn’t recognize him – not her father, definitely not, but also not the man from her dreams from so long ago – and she supposes who he is doesn’t really matter.

Think of something else, she tells herself, think of something besides this world.

She wants to go home to her boys, she thinks, back to the way it was before.

It wasn’t that way anymore, no matter how much she would want it to be, for something had changed, though she still doesn’t know what. Whatever it was it had changed the relationship between Jack and the Doctor, though it was subtle and if she hadn’t been paying close attention she wouldn’t have realized. It was the Doctor, pulling away, but not like before, when he practically hated Jack, but enough awkwardness to matter.

She wants to go back to the happiness and the dancing and the kissing.

But she can’t, for all the things her Doctor can do changing this that has happened to them isn’t one of them, and besides right now all that matters is getting of the path.

The path that has ended, like in her dreams, and the man that has disappeared.

And the knowledge that the only way out was to take that last step and _fall._

 

*~*

 _They never, ever, learn,_ the Doctor thinks, _no matter how long they are traveling by his side nor how many times he actually_ tells _them, they never, ever, learn not to wonder off._

It is almost, he admits, like they _need_ to wonder of, like they need to make their own path, like they want to prove – to the world and to him – that they don’t actually _need_ him. And they’ll do it, all of them, time and time again – even after wars and kidnappings and aliens and flesh eating monsters – even if, after a while, they know better. It’s not what happened this time – at least he thinks it’s not what happened this time – because it had been too fast, without warning, Jack and Rose were just _gone._

900 years of time and space and he thought, really he did, that he had seen it all (or at least enough to matter.)

This however, this is new, this is like nothing that has happened before. They were there, by his side laughing, and the next they were gone, faded away, like they’d never been there at all. It was almost, in some strange way, like the mist had clawed his way into his head and picked his worst nightmare – suddenly losing his friends – and made it real. Not that that make any sense at all, but then nothing about this world did so perhaps not making sense was the way to go.

Someone had probably just taken them – like on that satellite – but what he couldn’t figure out was _how._

Back then, on that stupid satellite, there had been a warning, a light that caught them by surprise but it was there; this time there was nothing, nothing but the mist. The world is still there, the Tardis behind him, the deserted town in front of him, all that is gone is his friends but – besides his Tardis – they are the only ones that matter. He thinks, briefly, that with his friends suddenly fading away the deserted town looks all the more dangerous and perhaps what he _should_ do is get into the Tardis and find them that way.

But the Tardis, quite suddenly, is gone as well, in the blink of an eye.

Something strange was going on, obviously, and whoever was doing this – because someone or something _had_ to be doing this – would pay for it. Nobody took his friends away and nobody even thought about taking his Tardis, for that whoever they were, they would pay. What he should do is now an impossibility leaving him with only one option: he has to check out the strangely deserted town. Perhaps his friends were there, perhaps – like on the satellite – the mist was some kind of deportation system.

He takes a breath, trying to fight the first instinct to rip the head of whomever it was that had taken Rose and Jack. He can still remember, though he tries not to, the cold anger that he’d barely been able to contain when that woman that brought them into the games had told him Rose’s dead _didn’t_ matter. He’d almost killed her but he didn’t because he _needed_ her to find out what was going on.

Which is why he needs to stay calm now, because he doesn’t know what’s going on.

The town was completely deserted and it was, in a word, _creepy._ It was a ghost town, deserted, silent, filled with cars and discarded stuff, but every living thing was just _gone._ Whatever had happened to Jack and Rose must have happened to everyone else – if there had ever been living things in this town anyway – but since he doesn’t know what that is the thought doesn’t help at all. So what, it occurs to him quite suddenly, if they’re all dead? What if he’s lost them without realizing it? What if Jack _is_ dead this time and he’d been wrong and all that avoidance had been for nothing? What if Jack’s gone and the last thing he remembers is the Doctor’s unwillingness to touch him?

No, he couldn’t – wouldn’t – think like that, they _had_ to be alive.

The alternative was just too painful.

And then suddenly, breaking the silence, footsteps, approaching from the left, and the Doctor thinks, briefly, that it _might_ be his friends. But then he thinks, it can’t be, because Rose, Rose would be running to him, not caring who could hear and Jack, Jack would be silent, as silent as he _could_ be, because he knew, knew what could happen. That’s the way it would be, logical too, because Jack, Jack had learned in the future but Rose, Rose never had.

So it’s not them, he knows, but he wants it to be, because then they could just _go._

(Assuming, that is, that they can find the Tardis of course.)

The women that approaches – at least he _thinks_ it’s a woman – is beautiful and he’s not sure which species she is – because she’s definitely alien considering the blue-ish glow that sort of surrounds her – but the clothes she wears are definitely e _arthly_ but also _ancient._ She doesn’t belong here, at least he thinks she doesn’t belong here she might –and briefly he thinks she’s some kind of strange combination of creatures he’s once met. She could be a friend, or at least friendly, and he would trust, if he hadn’t just lost his friends.

‘Where are my friends? What have done with them?’

‘Follow me, Doctor, just follow me.’

She turns away from him then, not answering his question and he thinks that he asks more questions, and must have followed her, though he can’t remember _deciding_ to do so. Still he finds himself, quite suddenly, inside a building – by the looks of it some kind of official building with offices – and there too it’s silent, too silent. (It is even creepier _inside,_ when he can see coffee cups left behind or phones unhooked, pens left behind and papers half finished.)  

She stops in a large room – a conference room the Doctor thinks – and turns to look at him with pleading eyes.

The saddest eyes he has ever seen.

‘Help us, oh Doctor, save us. They’ve trapped us, in the glass, let us out.’

‘Who trapped you? Who are you? Where are my friends?’

‘Help us, oh Doctor, save us…’

 _Clearly_ , the Doctor thinks, _she isn’t going to be of any help._ It appears that she has only one sentence she will say – or perhaps, apart from the follow me Doctor, it is the only thing she _can_ say. Perhaps her capture, whoever – or whatever – he might be has made sure she _can’t_ ask for more and whoever that is, probably wants him here as well. How else, he thinks, would she know to ask the Doctor to help her? It is slightly similar to another moment, another adventure, long ago – or not so long ago – with a crystal and people trapped in it; trapped in glass, like this one, which is strange, but then a lot of his adventures are alike.

It _could_ be a trap, a high probability, but it might simply be people who need his help.

He couldn’t leave, not just because she needed help but he’s lost his friends.

And God help her if she had anything to do with _that._

‘You must choose one Doctor.’

Her voice catches him by surprise, mostly because she’s started staying something new, but what she says makes no sense.

‘Choose one to what?’

‘Choose which one to save and rescue us as well. Or walk away and lose it all.’

Well _that_ definitely doesn’t sound good, and if she’s talking about what he thinks she’s talking of that she’s definitely _not_ his friends nor people that actually needed rescuing. And then he sees them, the mirrors, across the room – and he wonders, briefly, why he didn’t see them before but perhaps they hadn’t been there until he _needed_ to see them, or more precisely when they needed him to see them. Things appearing and disappearing, at will almost, like a dream and perhaps that was the idea.

Two mirrors, side by side, at the other side of the room.

In the right he could see Jack, his Captain, running through a dessert – from what he could not see – dragging a small child behind him. And in the left Rose, his Rose, walking across a path, following what he thinks is man, just walking.

So this, he thinks, is what they want him to do, they want him to choose which of his friends to save.

And then probably kill him and the other one.

Or let him live with the guilt.

It could be different, he supposes, if he chooses he might end up saving everyone – and by default the other one as well – but that doesn’t make sense. They want him to choose which friend he would leave to die, something he’s always feared would happen, and they don’t care what the consequences are. None of it made sense – he really couldn’t see, beyond that, what they wanted him to accomplish – it was almost, in a way, as if he had half the story. He turn, ready to scream and rage or at least ask more questions, but he was alone she – if there was ever a she and not just some kind of hologram – had disappeared too.

He _knew_ what he would choose in a moment like this, he doesn’t want to know but he does.

Jack knows too, Jack would choose to save Rose too.

Jack would tell him to save her and leave him behind.

But still it’s easy to think he knows, to accept that he must choose it is another, entirely too actually choose. But there’s no time, none to find another way at least, because Jack is falling, backwards in a pool of blood and Rose falling, falling in the darkness.

It would break his hearts to lose Jack again – assuming he won’t come back – but there was no other choice.

Jack would understand.

And there was no time, no time at all, he _had_ to do something, so he picks up a bat – what the hell is a bat doing _here_ anyway? – and he gets ready to break Rose’s mirror – which he hopes will save her. And then she’s back, not so nice anymore, glowing blue and screeching at the top of her longs – a sound he really never wanted to hear again – and he turns the bat against her.

She’s distracting him, she doesn’t want him to save anyone.

The mirror breaks then, suddenly, as he’s still fighting her of, and the glass shatters all around him.

The darkness swallows him whole.

The screeching fades away.

  



	4. Chapter 3

Jack wakes suddenly, gasping for the air that’s somehow escaping him, completely disorientated.

It takes him a minute, a full one probably because of the headache, to figure out that he is _not_ in a dessert, and that he’s _not_ dead and that he _is_ inside the Tardis. What he doesn’t know, what he can’t figure out, is how he got back here or even what happened at all. And then, quite suddenly, his brain starts working and he remembers, with clarity, that he held his brother’s hand and he slipped away _again._

_Gray!_

And he sits up, too fast as it turns out because the world is suddenly turning way too much, but that doesn’t matter because he remembers holding his brothers hand and he thinks he might be here. But he isn’t, of course he isn’t, because Jack realizes now, with absolute clarity, that Gray had never been real. He was dead, many years now, and he was never coming back, no matter how hard Jack prayed or wished for that to happen. Those events, that robbed him of his little brother, were so long passed that sometimes he could barely remember how his brother was. Scared, he remembers, and young and sure his big brother could protect him – but that’s just the _end._

In the dessert, whatever that had been, he’d been like that, as if there was no other way to remember him.

He wasn’t real and as such Jack couldn’t have lost him again.

But it sure felt that way.

He hears Rose wake up beside him and he turns his attention to her – willing himself to stop thinking about his dead brother even if he knows that won’t be possible – and he reaches out, to hold her, to touch her, to assure himself _this_ was real. But he’s too slow, logical considering all that happened, and the Doctor gets there first, holding her, kissing her. And then, blink and the moment is gone, he’s suddenly holding his face and looking at him and holding him – and in his eyes Jack can see a combination of guilt and horror and love.

Something happened in that world, something he didn’t quite understand and whatever it was had startled the Doctor.

That was clear.

This right here, this moment, is the closest he’s been to the Doctor since their return from the satellite. Which means something had happened and whatever it was had obviously – at least he hopes so – shocked him out of whatever was bothering him, which Jack is grateful for. The silence is deafening as the Doctor stares at him and Jack _wants_ to lean in and kiss him, prove to himself and the world that their relationship hadn’t changed, but then he was gone, leaning back against the console and Rose is talking and he feels abandoned all over again.

‘What happened?’

‘I’m not sure, nothing I’d ever seen before. What’d you two see?’

‘Just a path surrounded by darkness and I could only walk forwards. It was, sort of like a nightmare I used to have as a child. What about you Jack?’

‘I was in a dessert and I had to run from these horrible creatures and then… I’m not sure what happened at the end though.  I remember pain but…’

‘I fell into the darkness and then I was here. Does that even make sense? Doctor?’

‘I guess when I killed the creatures or broke the mirrors, not sure, I destroyed whatever was creating your worlds and we came back to safety. To the Tardis. Jack, who was the boy?’

‘What?’

‘I saw you, the both of you; I could see you in mirrors trapped in your worlds. You were running, from your creatures, but you were dragging a boy along. Who was he?’

‘I…Nobody important, just a child that I heard crying and I thought I could save, but it was imaginary anyway. Listen guy’s imaginary or not I’ve been trapped in a dessert so I’m taking a shower.’

There was more he could have said, probably more he should have said and he knew that his vague answer, which really wasn’t an answer at all, would make the Doctor wonder more. He knew that but he couldn’t, couldn’t think about Gray, couldn’t talk about him, he just wanted to leave everything in the past. That was the only way he’d managed to survive, the only way he’d managed to live on, by forgetting – or at least pretending he’d forgotten – which hadn’t been easy but he’d _done_ it. He couldn’t now, after so many years, say it out loud, even if Gray had managed to find his way in his thoughts because of that goddamn dream-like world.

But it was one thing to think about him, actively, and another to talk about him.

For that he still wasn’t ready, he might never be.

The warm water washed away the sand and the memory of the dessert and he hoped – though it was impossible – that it would the memory of Gray’s death with him.

 

*~*

 

‘Doctor, is he alright?’

‘I think so; those worlds were disturbing to say the least. I think they took the ideas out of our heads, our memories. That’s who the child probably was, somebody from his past. You should sleep, you look tired.’

‘Are you sure we’re safe?’

‘We’re in the Tardis, its safe here. It’s going to be alright.’

‘Are you coming?’

‘In a while, I’m going to make sure the Tardis is nowhere near that world, just to be on the safe side.’

‘Okay.’

For a moment, a second, Rose wants to stay because she doesn’t understand what happened and she has millions of questions. But he’s not going to answer, not the first time, and really she’s worried about Jack. So she leaves then, walking through the Tardis, trying to find her Captain. She wonders, briefly, why he’s not looking for him, why the Doctor is – apparently – content to leave him be and perhaps he knows something, something she doesn’t (possible.) She’d believe that, she would, except that she knew, she knew things had been tense for days.

Something had happened, something she had missed, and whatever it was it was destroying their friendship.

Or at least changing it, into something Rose is not sure she ever wants to see.

The strangest thing, from her point of view was that Jack too didn’t seem to understand what was happening. She’d seen him, when he thought she couldn’t see them, staring at the Doctor, trying to figure out _what - if_ anything - had happened. Which means that they’ll have to wait, her and Jack, for the Doctor to explain, and as such she knows they will be waiting for a long time and that if he ever does explain it to them they might not even understand because he’s the _Doctor._

She finds him lying on his bed, hair still wet from his shower, eyes closed.

He’s not sleeping, at least she thinks he’s not, but he doesn’t appear to have seen her either – or alternatively if he has he doesn’t care that she’s here – and she hesitates for a second because she thinks, briefly, what if he wants to be alone? It doesn’t matter, she’ll simply lie down, if he wants her to go all he’ll have to do is tell her.

He doesn’t.

_There’s a light, actually it’s more like there’s nothing but the light and she feels, briefly, that what_ should _be mentioned is that there is no dark, because the light is everywhere. It’s bright, brighter than anything she has seen before – but then she has not seen much – but it doesn’t burn, nor does it blind, it just is. It’s powerful, she knows – she can feel its power surging through her, tingling at her fingers – and somehow, though she doesn’t how, it’s a part of_ her.

_It reminds her, briefly in that one second she thinks, of the light that came from the heart of the Tardis._

_It probably is._

_There is a light and its power, such as it is, is in her, she’s powerful and in so much pain. The light is inside her and around her, it’s everywhere she looks and everywhere she doesn’t, not that that makes any sense. Perhaps she controls it, perhaps she could, but she thinks, mostly, it – whatever it is – is in control of_ her. _She sees the Doctor, at least she thinks she does, lying in front of her, or somewhere else – she’s not sure if this is happening or not at all – and then he’s looking at her with a mixture of adoration and amazement and horror._

_‘I am the Bad Wolf.’_

_The words escape before she realizes what she’s saying and a look of understanding flashes across the Doctor’s face – and Rose doesn’t understand, at all, what it is he’s understanding and she thinks, suddenly, that she’ll probably never know – but he says nothing._

_‘Everything turns to dust…the Time War ends.’_

_The words are important; they mean something, even if she doesn’t know what they mean or where they come from. She thinks they come from the light, from the Tardis, or perhaps they’re hers, from somewhere deep inside, or – most likely – it’s a combination of both. Because she thinks she understands, if nothing else, that for this moment, in time and space, she is both Rose – human girl – and the light – the heart of the Tardis. Somehow._

_She feels Jack lying motionless, somewhere far away, lost to this world forever._

_That is wrong._

_The light still burns, inside and out, burning her live from the inside, her head pounding. But she thinks then if she does something, if it’s the last thing she does, she’ll bring back the one person who should not have died._

_‘I bring life.’_

_She can hear him; feel him, inside her and far away, her Jack, her Captain, gasping for air, alive. She turns to the Doctor then, who’s still staring at her and she thinks, briefly, this is it, it hurts too much, she won’t live._

_Tears fall down as she can feel the light, the power, exploding inside her._

_And a song, a melody, soft and reassuring, calming, all around her._

_Soon there’ll be nothing but darkness._

She’s awake then, suddenly, sitting upright in Jack’s bed, trying to calm her racing heart. He’s here, right beside her, he’s dead – he never was, at least she hopes he never was – and everything is alright. It was just a dream, a strange one, a product of her overactive imagination. Jack’s still asleep, which is strange and unsettling because usually he always knows when someone is awake, he always knows when somebody needs him.

Perhaps something has changed about him, perhaps he is different.

Or, which is more likely, he’s just exhausted.

She should lie down again, she should sleep, and she’s just as exhausted as he is, so she lies back down next to him.

And tries to forget the strange dream, the calming melody and the light all around her.

 

*~*

 

There are times that the Doctor is absolute positive about one thing: his Tardis is messing with his mind.

Back when Rose first entered the Tardis, determined to see it all, the Tardis had given her a room somewhere between the library and the pool – though the Doctor will admit that since the Tardis changes her interior several times a week it is possible that the room is still in the same place but everything else has changed, who knows really. But then Jack had come, in a literally explosive entry, and the Tardis had given him the room across from Rose without being asked, as if she knew, somehow, what he hadn’t understood: that Jack would be staying, permanently, despite his reservation.

 She gave Jack his room on his first night in the Tardis, she never gave Adam a room.

Like she knew what would come.

Then she’d moved their rooms to be close to his – the room he barely even used – and they became some sort of strange triangle.

And now, after a very strange day, she wouldn’t allow him in his own room.

Which probably meant she wanted him to go somewhere else, probably Jack’s room, but he’s not sure if he’s ready fort that or if he’ll ever be. Maybe it will be better, at least for Jack, if he goes in now, if he goes and talks to him or at least stays near to him. Surely he could pretend that he didn’t feel this way and eventually it would be real, right?

He wishes he could be sure of what happened so he could explain.

He knows what he thinks, what probably did happen, that somehow Jack has become immortal but he can’t be sure – and he really, really doesn’t want to test the theory – not even if he’d seen Jack die in that mirror. He’s still not sure which world that was, still not sure if any of it was real and if it wasn’t than Jack hadn’t died and hadn’t come back to live which means he’s back to the beginning. There’s no way to know for sure, actually there is but it’s not like he can walk up to the guy and just shoot him in the head – Rose would probably kill _him_ if he even thought about doing that – even if he’s a hundred percent sure the guy will come back to live.

He does know this he needs to decide what he’s going to do and he needs to do it soon.

Before he loses him completely.

Because if he keeps acting like this they’ll notice – he thinks they might have already noticed, even Rose – and eventually Jack might start to think he’s done something wrong again, and the Doctor really doesn’t want him to think that. Jack had been a hero, a true one, on that satellite and he never, ever, wanted him to doubt that.

They’re asleep, like so many times before, Rose with her head on his chest, Jack with his arms around her. On most nights, in the before, when the loneliness would become too much for him, he crawled into bed beside them and held them both. But now, now that he probably needs it, he can’t do that because he still hasn’t gotten used to the Captain and the thought of being so close to him makes him feel sick.

He turns then, closing the door as softly as he can, and walks away.

Someday he’ll be able to be close to him again; someday he’ll get over it.

He has to.

*~*

Now the Doctor doesn’t even bother to look him in the eye anymore.

In those first few days after the game station the Doctor had been avoiding him as much as possible but at least he’d still looked at him. Now though he’d stopped doing that and for the life of him Jack couldn’t understand why and he was, kind frankly, getting sick of it. He’d done something, what he was not sure but he’d done something wrong, and whatever it was had upset the Doctor and this was the result. But since he didn’t know what it was, or even when it was he did this, he couldn’t apologize, couldn’t make it better.

‘Never doubted him, never will.’

The words had rolled of his tongue, the only truth he knew, and whatever happened must have happened after that but he can’t figure out what he did. Perhaps whatever he’d done had derailed the original plan, the one the Doctor quite clearly didn’t set in motion, and had as such accidently brought Rose or someone else in danger? Or perhaps it was something else he said, something else he did?

It didn’t make sense, not at all, and it wouldn’t until the Doctor told him.

‘Alright Doc, just tell me, what did I do wrong?’

‘Sorry.’

‘I know you heard me, don’t even bother trying to pretend you can’t. Look, I’ve clearly done something to upset and I would just like to know what that was so I can apologize and we can move past this.’

‘You haven’t done anything Captain.’

‘Doc…’

‘How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that? Never mind, look I’ve just been overwhelmed with memories of the Time Lords and Galifrey and the Time war and….It doesn’t matter. But now that you are here Captain, take a look at this and tell me if you see what I see. ‘

It was an excuse, a way for the Doctor to distract him and a part of him – the part that really, really wants to know what the hell is going on – wants to keep pressing, keep asking. But the way the Doctor talks around the subject, and around him, as if it hurts to even think about it scares him.

Perhaps he’s better of not knowing.


	5. Chapter 4

He knows he should have seen this coming, really he _does._

He should have realized that it wouldn’t be long before Jack would start asking questions, should have known he wouldn’t have the time to make a decision – or at least should have realized he wouldn’t have forever to decide – he should have known that. The Doctor knows that Rose, dear sweet Rose, wouldn’t ask, she’d wait for him to explain but Jack didn’t have that type of patience, the Doctor knew this. He also should have known that – probably because of how they met and his treatment of the man at the time – Jack would jump to the conclusion that it was _his_ fault.

It wasn’t, he’d done nothing wrong, and it wasn’t Rose’s either, not all.

It was, without a fail, his fault.

He’d been the one who took Jack – and Rose – with him, without thinking of the consequences; he was the one who decided they should stay to fight the Daleks and in the end _he_ was the one who told Jack about the plan that would kill him anyway, which is why, he suspects, Jack didn’t run away when he ran out of ammo. He hadn’t given him a choice, hadn’t told him to run just in case, because he himself hadn’t believed there would be a chance. It was all his fault and as such _he_ – the almighty Doctor – _should_ be paying for it but it was Jack who was paying the price.

That’s how it always, the Doctor thinks, somebody else pays the price for _his_ mistakes.

The guilt combined with the feeling of wrong that radiated from Jack – and really there was no other way to explain this to anyone, least of all Jack – conspired to turn him basically into a _jackass._ Because there it was the opportunity to explain it all, just to tell Jack everything and promise he was looking for a solution – because he was should it prove that Jack was in fact immortal – but he couldn’t find the words and then Rose was suddenly there and he _couldn’t._

Rose would feel so guilty if she ever were to find out.

‘So where are we going?’

‘I was thinking about New, New Earth.’

‘New, New Earth? Seriously? Which would be…’

‘Ah, after the destruction of earth, you remember don’t you Rose….’

*~*

When he thinks of it later, someday, Jack will come to the conclusion that it is all, without a doubt, the fault of the Face of Boe.

It was he – was he a he? – who had, after all, send the message to the Doctor that brought them to the New, new Earth and got them in this entire mess in the first place. He didn’t know this at them time, the Doctor had neglected to tell him and Rose who they were visiting, but he found out later, after it was all done. He doesn’t know why the face of Boe is the Doctor’s friend – but then the man doesn’t seem to know himself so perhaps he still has to meet him for the first time – but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the face of Boe sends a message to the Doctor which gets them to this hospital in which they, accidently, split up and apparently Rose encounters someone who should logically be dead. Of course none of this was technically the Face of Boe’s fault but it had been his message who set it all in motion so Jack would blame him, if only privately.

That he knows, everything else is a complete mystery to him.

Whoever she was – and he’s resolved to find out the full story later – she’d somehow managed to possess Rose, which he knows from experience isn’t a very pleasurable situation. He thinks, he’s not sure, that Rose mentioned this person once but she’d talked more about the destruction of the earth which had, logically, had more of an impact on her. She’d jump around from Rose and the Doctor as they attempted to get away from the sick people – which Jack will admit were some funny moments and he would have laughed had the situation to be so dire – and then the most confusing thing of all happened.

The Doctor had told them they shouldn’t let the sick ones touch them or they’d get sick and die.

He’d felt them, quite suddenly, the hands of multiple sick ones, and he’d expected to watch the boils appear and the feeling of sickness overwhelm him. It doesn’t happen, it doesn’t come, nothing changes. Rose – or whoever she was at that moment – looked at him shocked – which is how he felt – but the Doctor wasn’t shocked. The Doctor had looked angry and resigned but not surprised.

But there had been no time then and they’d gone off.

He had to admit as far as plans go that one went off without a hitch, whish as of late is some kind of miracle, and the Face of Boe – who apparently wasn’t dying anymore – refused to give the Doctor his message and disappeared. And Rose, back to being Rose, had wanted to go and see New, New Earth and they went off to go do just that. And Jack thinks about asking questions then but he figures he can do that later.

A loud and angry voice cuts through the silence and he remembers thinking ‘the best laid plans.’

 

*~*

 

In the last few hours Rose has learned a lot about possession.

Mainly: when it’s over you’re left with a killer headache, which is probably somewhat logical. Still even in her possessed state she managed to notice – or more precisely Cassandra noticed which meant she noticed as well or it was in her memories she’s not quite sure how it works – that something had happened to Jack. Something that had clearly upset him somewhat and the Doctor looked somewhat resigned.

She can remember, vaguely, that the sick people touched Jack but nothing happened.

She hoped it was because he was a time agent.

She hoped it was because in his future they’d developed vaccines for the illnesses.

She knows they probably hadn’t.

And then her dream – light and burning and a melody and ‘I bring life’ – makes so much more sense and she thinks _I did this_ with the Tardis inside me, I did this. She’s not sure what this is or what it means and she can’t be sure if it’s something bad but it’s definitely not that good either.

She wants to ask but she doesn’t dare and she resigns to waiting till Jack asks.

Then there’s a loud and angry voice and she thinks _‘Of course there is, they can’t have one calm moment can they?’_ but she doesn’t see him, not yet. He’s screaming something about ‘your fault’ and ‘sister’ and Rose can’t quite understand what’s going on but she can _guess._ And then she sees him angry and obviously in pain and holding a gun – well she thinks it’s a gun probably a new model – and then he’s firing and she thinks they should run but there’s no real time.

She hits the floor suddenly and she knows Jack pushed her aside because the Doctor had been standing further away. And then Jack too is lying on the ground, blood pouring from a chest wound, and she thinks _she_ is screaming but she’s not sure. He was afraid, she could tell, and in pain and alone and she wanted to reach out and hold him.

‘Everything will be alright Rose.’

Of course everything is going to be alright, Rose thinks, they’re in a hospital from the future, surely somebody can _fix this._ The Doctor reaches out to hold Jack’s hand and just looks at him as if  he’s trying to say something to Jack, something she can’t understand, and then Jack’s eyes close and he stops moving and…

He’s dead.

It takes her a moment to realize it and then another to accept it but Jack, her Jack, her Captain, _is dead._ It’s wrong and twisted and she wishes she could actually do something about it but of course she can’t. And then the Doctor’s arms are around her and he’s pulling her away from Jack and she’s screaming, fighting and kicking trying to get back to Jack but he’s not letting her. She thinks she hates him in that moment, even though there’s nothing she can do.

She’s inside the Tardis before she realizes it.

‘Doctor, no, we can’t leave him there.’

‘Of course we’re not, I’m getting him. It’s going to be alright Rose, you’ll see.’

And then he’s gone, presumably to get Jack, and he closed the Tardis doors behind him – she has a strange feeling of déjà vu when she pulls at them and she thinks of the last time he did this to her – but at least she isn’t being left behind this time. He’s back just a minute later, dragging Jack’s lifeless body behind him.

She sits next to him as the Doctor takes them somewhere else, in shock and in silence.

Then Jack suddenly gasps for air.

*~*

The Doctor should have realized, with his luck, that at some point this was going to happen.

At some moment, in one of their many crazy adventures, he would be faced with undeniable proof of Jack’s immortality – at least he _hopes_ he has immortality –and at the moment he is extremely happy and grateful about _that._ Because it meant that Jack wouldn’t be dead, not here and now, and that there’d be another day and another life. And he knows it’s selfish and wrong, because he doesn’t want his friend to live with immortality but he’s beyond caring.

And then they’re all three in the Tardis and Jack is gasping for air – oh thank God – and he’s so grateful it happened in here because God only knows what those people in that hospital would have done to Jack. He’s happy – of course he is – but also dismayed and resigned and kind of worried about telling Jack the truth, he had hoped he could tell him the truth without involving an actual revival incident.

Too late for that now.

‘Wha…wha…euhm….wait…What happened? How did we get in here?’

‘Captain, breathe. What do you remember?’

‘I don’t know…We were in a hospital and I think there was a guy and a gun and….’

He can see it the second the truth sets in, the second he remembers what happened; Jack’s eyes open wider and his hand moves to his chest and then he stares at the blood on it.

‘I got shot. I was dead. I died. Doctor, what the hell is going on here?!’

This was definitely not the way he wanted it to go, it’s not the way he wanted the truth to come to light, but wishing for everything to be different won’t get them anyway. Nor will lying or pretending he doesn’t know – which admittedly he wants to do – because if anyone deserves to know it’s definitely Jack.

There’s nothing to it now.

‘Jack, there’s something you need to know about what happened on the satellite.’

*~*

 

He knows something is wrong the second he wakes, if one can call it simply waking.

When he does, and later when he hears the full story, he’ll come to the conclusion that he probably _should_ have realized it before, but then who would think _this_ had happened to them? He should have known when he woke on the satellite after being exterminated and he wasn’t dead but he hadn’t because again who would?

He’s tempted, severely, to hit the Doctor.

Because who was he, he who thought he knew everything, to decide what Jack should and shouldn’t know about his own life? He was nobody, he might be a Time Lord but it was Jack’s live and Jack had the right to know everything. Even the things the Doctor wanted to ignore.

‘You knew.’

It’s not a question nor an accusation, not really, it’s a _fact._

‘Jack, I wasn’t sure, there was no way to be and I didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t want you to think about it, not until I was sure.’

‘You didn’t have the right to decide that, Doctor!!! It’s my live; I had the right to know this, even if you weren’t sure. What the hell is the matter with you!?!’

Rose is just out of his reach, leaning against the Tardis console, staring at him yet not looking him in the eye. The guilt is practically radiating of her as the Doctor explains in detail – at least he thinks it’s in detail for all he knows the Doctor is hiding something else from them – what happened on the satellite. He wanted to reach out, assure her it wasn’t her fault and he wasn’t angry, but he didn’t seem to be able to move nor really think about anything but this conversation.

‘Is this why you won’t look at me? Why you’ll avoid being close to me? You think this my fault? I didn’t ask for this!’

He doesn’t wait for the answer for he already knows; the look on the man’s face is enough.

He turns to the door that leads to the outside but it won’t budge, quite obviously the Tardis was keeping him inside – probably afraid he’d never come back – and all he can do is hide inside the Tardis.

‘Jack, wait, just listen to me.’

He sounds lost, Jack vaguely registers, lost and scared and alone, but Jack can’t bring himself to care.

‘No! You don’t get to say anything right now. I’ve had quite enough of your lies.’

He’s not sure how he got back to his room and he thinks he might have said something to Rose before he ran out, but then again he might not have. All he knows is that he’s suddenly in his room and the door closes behind him – and he thinks briefly that the Tardis at least cares enough to make sure he’s alone – and then his knees buckle underneath him.

He feels lost, lost and scared and betrayed and angry.

Angry at the Doctor because what right did he have to keep this from him? Angry because the man didn’t want to be near him because of something Jack hadn’t even known about.

He feels empty.

He feels alone.

They’re together, he thinks, he hadn’t been left behind, but he still feels abandoned, still feels destroyed. He feels alone, he hasn’t felt this way in years and years, not since Gray’s hand slipped out of his and he had to learn to live with the guilt and pain.

He wishes he could go.

 


	6. Chapter 5

He waits three hours before he decides that he needs to talk to Jack.

He knows it might be better, for the both of them, for him to wait, wait until Jack is ready to talk to him. But the Doctor is quite sure, at the same time, that if he doesn’t talk to Jack right now their relationship – whatever it is at the moment – may never fully recover. He’s sitting on the ground, middle of the room, just staring ahead and the Doctor can’t help but think that he looks so lost and alone and scared.

Not that he can blame him of course.

‘Jack?’

‘Leave me alone Doctor. Go away.’

‘Look I understand that you want to be alone but we need to talk about this. You need to understand.’

‘You should have told me, even if you couldn’t trust me anymore, you _should_ have told me.’

‘Jack…’

‘I had a right to know!’

He’s angry, the Doctor can hear that, but he’s calm too and he’s not sure whether that means he’s pissed off or relatively calm – when they thought Rose was dead Jack had screamed and fought but now his anger seemed more controlled if that made any sense – but he does, without a doubt, sound lost.

‘I know.’

‘Why couldn’t you look at me? Or be near me?’

‘Jack…’

‘Tell me!’

‘You’re wrong Jack, you’re wrong I don’t know how else to explain it. You shouldn’t exist. You’re a fixed point in time and space, a fact; this was never meant to happen. And for a Time Lord that is just….’

‘So what you’re prejudice?’

‘Maybe.’

He moved then, trying to get closer to him, but Jack backed away from him – and he thinks, idly, this is what Jack must have felt like over the past days – so instead he steps backwards, further and further away. Glass cracks under his shoe and he finds a photograph – Rose to the left, him in the middle, Jack on the right – and the cracks, a straight line, separating him from Jack.

‘Where are we?’

‘Karole, there’s some sort of civil war going on but I’ve landed us in one of the periods of peace, at least I hope I have.’

‘I need air.’

And then he’s gone and the Doctor thinks, idly, he should go after him and stop him but he can’t make himself move. Because he can hear it, the unspoken words, ‘I need air, but not with you, leave me alone.’

Jack hadn’t even looked at him.

He supposes he had that coming.

 

*~*

 

And there it was the truth, the reality, the dream: this was all _her_ fault.

Rose still couldn’t quite remember what had happened – apart from some vague memories from a strange dream – but she did _know_ what she’d done. A part of her knows this is bad, considering the reaction of both Jack and the Doctor, yet at the same time Rose can’t help but feel happy that he can’t die at the moment. Because if this wasn’t real than Jack would have died on that satellite or when he got shot in the hospital and Rose couldn’t live with that.

She wanted to talk to him, really she did, but she couldn’t find the words, wasn’t even sure if there w _ere_ words to say. Besides it was quite obvious that Jack needed to be alone right now and that if he were going to talk to someone he should talk to the Doctor because _he_ might actually have answers. She hadn’t expected him to return so fast, but he did and Rose couldn’t help but be shocked at how he looked, Jack was always, always happy but now he just looked lost.

‘Jack?’

‘Hey Rose, it’s okay. I just need some fresh air, alone.’

‘I’m so sorry Jack.’

‘Hey,’ he whispered holding her face in his hands ‘This is not your fault, don’t feel guilty. I love you.’

He kissed her in a way that only he could, love and acceptance and forgiveness all wrapped in one kiss.

‘I’ll see you later okay?’

Then he was gone, the Tardis doors finally opening, and she stood staring at the place he’d just been.

‘Rose?’

She hadn’t heard the Doctor approach but she should have known he’d be there, should have known he’d come after Jack.

‘Why did you lie to him? You should have just told him the truth. Didn’t he have the right to know? Didn’t I?’

‘I didn’t want him or you to worry.’

Of course he didn’t, that was so him, always worried about them, never wanting to tell them the things he thought they shouldn’t know. This is how he’d tricked her on the satellite, this is how she’d gotten home, he hadn’t told her something and as such he’d been able to trick her. She knows why he does it, of course she does, it’s love – the same emotion that made her give Jack life – but it doesn’t mean he’s right.

All of this was so completely messed up.

*~*

 

As it turns out dying actually hurts a lot less than Jack imagined it would.

Which is, he’ll admit readily, a rather strange and completely morbid thought, but this is what his life is like now. Perhaps he should be thinking about something else – like the Doctor and his lies and Rose and the Tardis – but he doesn’t _want_ to think about those things, not yet, not ever if he can help it but it doesn’t seem as though _that_ will be a choice. But really as it turns out dying doesn’t hurt that much but coming back now that _hurts._ He hadn’t really expected that, all the movies in which immortality is a theme made it seem like it was _nothing._

The reality is that coming back feels like trying to breathe glass and he could almost feel it cutting through his body.

In a way he supposes it makes sense, coming back isn’t natural after all.

It’s rather cold outside.

Had he been paying attention to the world around him he probably would have noticed this but he had a lot on his mind. He hears the footsteps following steadily behind him and he knows he’s being followed – probably for a while now another thing he didn’t notice and though he has a lot on his mind it shouldn’t be a reason to get _sloppy –_ what he doesn’t know is who is following him, or why. As far as he knows he’s never been here before, then again it might be random or it might have something to do with the Doctor.

If it does he might punch him.

He knows how to get out of situations like this, not just because he’s Captain Jack Harkness but because he was trained by the Time Agency. And though he harbors a lot of resentment about his time there – specifically the time he lost – he’s never forgotten his lessons. Because they were, admittedly, _genius._ So he knows, he knows, he needs to lose them get back to the Tardis and fly away, but he’s not ready to get back to the Tardis and deal with the Doctor, so plan B will have to do.

Which is turning into a dead-end street and just stop.

‘Tell me, why are you following me?’

‘I just, I wanted to…Steve? Is that really you?’

‘Listen, whatever your name is, my name is not Steve, you’ve got me confused with someone else. So I’m warning you just stop following me.

‘No I’m not confusing you, it is really you, I know it is I would recognize you anywhere. Don’t you remember me?’

Normally when a girl – and this is a very pretty girl – asks him something like this he’d make something up and usually that would work. But there was something about this situation, it wasn’t quite right. He’s not Steve – he remembers all of his aliases Steve had never been one of them – and whoever he is this girl is searching for him, which means he can’t lie to her, can’t pretend he’s someone he’s not.

Of course that was a lot easier when it was just one girl.

Now it’s two girls and two guys and damn it, Jack realizes, he’s just walked right into a trap hasn’t he? If they are confusing him with someone else and this someone else is their friend than they might just let him go, but then they might not be his friends, or they might not be confusing him with someone else just trapping him to get to the Doctor. It wouldn’t exactly be the first time.

‘Look Steve, buddy,…’

‘My name is not Steve, as I mentioned you’re confusing me with someone else.’

‘Okay, fine, you’re not using the name Steve anymore. It doesn’t change who you are.’

‘I’m not Steve, my name is Jack Harkness. We don’t know each other.’

‘But we do. We are your friends and we spend the last few years thinking you were dead, thinking that the General had somehow gotten his hands on you and murdered you like he always said he would. Where have you been?’

‘Look..uehm…’

‘Amaria.’

‘Amaria, I don’t who you are, I don’t know who the General is, I am not the friend you’re thinking of. I’m sorry too, I’d like to be, if only to help but I’m not. Now let me pass.’

‘Steve….’

The hand that grabs him comes out of nowhere, the man on his left – brown hair, medium height, and he thinks dark eyes – is determined that he won’t get away. It doesn’t though as if they want hurt him, it just really seems as if they think he’s this Steve fellow and they’re just happy he’s back. Except that he isn’t, he can’t be, and he’s sorry, really he is – he’s lost enough friends to understand how much it could hurt to think you’ve found them just to lose them again – but there’s no way to change it.

All he wanted to do was get drunk and forget about everything if only for a few hours.

Was that too much to ask?

The picture Amaria trust in his hand is old but not too old, they’re there, the people surrounding him, and so is _he._ There’s no denying it really, he’s on the picture, he is Steve and for some reason he can’t quite remember this. The clothes are old, he’d been wearing them – he remembers – before going to 1941 and saving Rose. He’d been wearing them when he woke up with no memories of the past two years, just a splitting headache and the realization that the Time Agency took something from him.

‘But how…Alright so you’ve got the right person after all, and since you look about as shocked as I feel I’m going to assume that the memory erasing wasn’t done by you. Splendid.’

These were his friends he thinks, a long time ago; at least they appear to be. He might be wrong, they might have harmed, they might have been friends when this picture was taken but who knows when it was taken exactly, who knows what happened after? He knows that, he’s not stupid, but he’s also been searching for answer for so long that he feels he deserves them.

There is a part of him that hates the person that erased his memories, be it this group of people or some unknown person.

And yet at the same time there is another part of him that is _grateful._

If his memories hadn’t been erased he wouldn’t have run, wouldn’t have gone to 1941, wouldn’t have met the Doctor and Rose.

He wouldn’t have known what he was missing, no memories after all – just like right now – but that wouldn’t change the fact that he’d be alone.

His heart was telling him he could trust them.

But his heart wasn’t always right.

 

*~*

 

She’d waited an hour before she followed him.

Understanding that he really needed some time alone, to come to terms with the earthshattering truth, but that didn’t mean he _should_ be alone at least not for too long. He needed someone, someone to listen to him, someone to talk to and she – as selfish as it may sound – needed reassurances that he wouldn’t just leave them behind. She needed to know that if she were to close her eyes and fall asleep he’d still be there when she woke.

She finds him in a bar – shocking, not, - talking and laughing with a group of unknown people.

For a moment, a second, she’s jealous, she wants to run in and tell him off but then she thinks why he shouldn’t have fun, he is Captain Jack Harkness, and this is what he does. He looks happy, care-free, like for one moment he doesn’t have a burden and she knows the second she walks in that illusion will shatter. He _needs_ this, she knows, needs to pretend if only for a while that everything is alright, that he is normal.

They’d been like that once, happy and carefree, she hopes they can get it back.

‘You alright miss?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Do you know him? The man in the old coat that is, Steve I mean.’

‘Euhm, you mean Jack?’

Perhaps she should be shocked by a person knowing Jack by another name but she knows enough of him to know he’s changed it about a dozen times. Sometimes she wonders if he even remembers what his real name actually is or if over time he has forgotten.

‘Yes of course, I meant to warn him when he walked in but I didn’t want to tip them of, it might have gotten him hurt.’

‘Warn him?’

‘Those people they’re not his friends, a long time ago they pretended to be and then they destroyed him.’

‘I have to warn him.’

‘You should wait until he is alone, you might get hurt.’

‘Jack won’t let me get hurt.’

‘So you are close then?’

‘I have to warn him.’

Rose is not sure if she trust this guy, has no reason to really, but he _might_ be right. These people could genuinely be old friends of Jack but then they might be luring him into a trap as well. Really, she thinks, is that much to ask for just one quite moment to think? Why must there always be danger in whatever world or time they landed in? Couldn’t they just have fun?

She stops halfway to the door what if he is in danger? What if she sets in motion events that harm him? She knows he can’t die immortality and all that but she doesn’t want to witness that again, not ever if she can help it. Besides she can still die and she might be overreacting as well. What she needs, really is the Doctor, he’ll know what to do.

She turns then determined to make it back to the Tardis.

After that there’s only darkness.


	7. Chapter 6

Sometimes, not very often, but sometimes he could feel it when something happened to his companions.

At times he was wrong and just worried but often he was right – and really Rose attracted more danger than any of his previous companions and Jack was no stranger to danger as well. At the moment however his bad feeling had more to do with the fact that in his opinion Rose had been gone too long – Jack as well but Jack might need more time and, while he didn’t like the idea of him being alone out there, the Doctor liked the idea of Rose being alone even less. Jack had to come to terms with what had happened to him, if such a thing was possible of course, and he’s not sure how long it will take or if the other man will ever willingly enter his Tardis again.

But Jack would call if it took longer than a day if only so Rose wouldn’t worry.

But Rose had been gone for far too long.

Of course it could be nothing, she could simply with Jack, she too is after all rather angry at him, and perhaps she doesn’t want to talk to him. But knowing Rose, and her luck, it’s far more likely that she has gotten herself into some kind of trouble and so he just has to go and check. If it turns out that her luck actually held for once and she is with Jack he’d leave them to it, but he had to see it with his own eyes.

Something cracks under his shoe and as he lifts his feet every good scenario flies out of his head.

It’s _her_ bracelet.

The one her mother had given her a few months when they’d gone back to London for Christmas – complete with an invasion and a sword fight and a very, very amused Captain – and she’d promised to never take it off. He hadn’t understood, it’s not like it really mattered whether she took it off or not, her mother would never know the difference but she told him, in no uncertain terms, that it was the thought that counted.

He still doesn’t understand but he knows this: she would never take it of willingly.

And she would never leave it lying on the ground.

Why is it that when he landed his Tardis somehow his companion always managed to get into trouble? Why couldn’t he, for once, have landed on a planet with no problems at all? Is that too much to ask?

Nobody is looking at him.

It wouldn’t bother him if it wasn’t so obvious that they were doing everything in their power to ignore him, which usually meant they knew something. And old man sitting leaning against the wall beckons him to come closer and so he does.

‘It’s the girl you’re looking for isn’t it.’

‘Rose. What happened?’

‘He took her to the factory I suppose, not sure why, but she turned to walk away and he knocked her out. There’s not getting her back anymore, if he has her you should just forget about her and walk away. I’m telling you nobody comes back from the factory. Nobody.’

Great, the Doctor thinks, just great.

*~*

 

Jack has done many strange things in his life and he has lived through his share of uncomfortable moments, but this one definitely wins the price.

It is, after all, one thing to have a hole in your memories, to have lost an entire period of your life and be unable to reclaim it, a part of his life that might have been important and might not have been. He supposes, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that important those two years, but they haunted him anyway. He couldn’t even remember if they were good or bad years, if he had done something brave or something evil. Still despite all of that he doesn’t actually want to know what happened, he doesn’t want to be told, if he’s to know he wants to remember.

It’s the only way he can be sure it’s the truth.

But still there are moments, like right now, that he wishes he does remember, if only because if he did this moment wouldn’t be so uncomfortable. As it turns out talking to people that know you but you have no recollection of is just plain _weird._

And the thing is – and this knowledge might be what makes it all so uncomfortable – he’s not sure if he can trust them, he’s not sure if they are his friends. Sure they have a picture of him, but there must be dozens of pictures of him and the Doctor scattered through time and space and not all of them had been their friends or allies. For all he knows they’d been tight when the picture taken and shattered the moment after, a picture was after all nothing but a frozen moment in time. A pose. A snapshot.

If they were telling the truth they were his friends.

But he’s not sure.

In the beginning, when he woke to find two years of life missing, he’d tried everything to remember. This was before he realized that the amnesia might be a blessing in disguise and he might not like what he discovered. Once, in a very memorable adventure, he’d gone under hypnosis which, apart from landing him in uncomfortable situations, did nothing to help him. Then again the guy he’d gone to hadn’t exactly been a professional so it might have worked had he gone about the right way, not that it matters.

And here he was now, years and years later, sitting and laughing on a planet whose name he could not recall, with people he could not remember who may or may not be his friends.

Talk about confusing.

At the very least, if nothing else, it was accomplishing his original task: think of anything but the Doctor and that whole immortality thing.

Joseph, the guy on his left – at least he thinks his name is Joseph – had apparently once screamed like a girl. Which if he could recall the memory – and if it ever happened – would probably be hilarious. He himself hadn’t said that much and they didn’t really seem to mind, perhaps they were hoping by talking about the past they might jog his memory, but he knows it won’t.

His instincts – his heart, his emotions – are telling him that they are his friends, that even though he can’t remember them they mattered once. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he can trust them, Jack knows, for all he knows his emotions could be wrong or he could just be hoping that they are his friends. Perhaps they are the reason he can no longer remember or he could have been the one to betray them and the amnesia might have been their punishment, because they didn’t want to kill him.

There must have been a reason someone erased his memory, even if he himself cannot see it. 

It might be better not to know.

It might be better to know.

It doesn’t matter he never will, not exactly.

He’s afraid of finding out the full truth, of knowing what he did with those two years of his life. He could have built a home, several in fact, or torn one down. He could have had a family and left them behind, or he could have destroyed one. He could have saved a planet; he could have been the reason for its destruction. He might have, once upon a time, been the evil the Doctor fights against.

If they speak the truth – not just about him but about them as well – than he’s the hero of this story.

But they could be lying and the cautious part of him – the one that has been travelling alone for far too long – is telling him to go, just cut his losses. If they are his friends they will be hurt but it is better, far better, than walking into a trap.

It’s better than talking to the Doctor, he thinks for the thousand times.

But then, at the moment, everything would probably be. He loves him, more than anything he’s ever loved before, and this man – that is the center of both his and Rose’s universe – had called him _wrong,_ like he wished he’d died on that satellite. He wonders – not for the first time – if the Doctor hadn’t wanted to leave him there, standing alone among the wreckage. Perhaps if he hadn’t come to his senses so quickly he might have stood there all alone watching as his home faded away.

Maybe he’s just thinking too much.

‘Captain, there you are.’

There are moments, like right now for instance, that Jack is almost convinced the Doctor can actually read minds. Or, if he cannot not to that, he has some way of knowing when somebody is thinking about him. There are moments he admires that, the way the man – alien – can sneak up to people without them really noticing, insert himself into a conversation and walk away before anyone had really noticed they didn’t know this man. Today however was not one of those days and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why the Doctor just couldn’t accept he needed to be alone for a moment.

‘Really Doc, I told you I did not want to talk to you.’

‘You don’t really have a choice.’

‘I still don’t want to talk to you, no matter what you say.’

‘Rose is missing, possibly kidnapped, let’s go.’

*~*

 

When she was a child, around six years old, Rose had been terrified of the dark.

So afraid, in fact, that once the lights went off she refused to move, not even if she needed to go to the bathroom. And really it wasn’t so much the dark that scared her, or the things she could not see, but the things she imagined she could see. From monsters under her bed to giant spiders that wanted to eat her anything, and everything, she imagined coming towards her in the dark. The kind of things that were gone the second the lights came back on and she’d known that they weren’t really, that there was nothing to be afraid of, but that knowledge hadn’t helped.

Her mother had bought her a nightlight, to ward of the darkness, but the shadows that were casted on the walls because of the light had actually made it _worse._  

It was better to just leave it off and deal with the darkness.

That was a long time ago, a part of her life she barely remembers, and even more rarely thinks about, but it is the first thing she thinks of when she opens her eyes. It was the dark room she suspects, or maybe the light in the corner that somehow managed to create the same shadows on the wall as another light had done way back when. Of course now she knows monsters are real.

At least she isn’t hurt.

The most important thing to do now is find out where she is and, more importantly, how to get out. She knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Doctor and Jack will come for her, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try to get out on her own. What if, after all, Jack is somewhere here as well? That man, the one who obviously knocked her out, had been talking about Jack – though he called him Steve – and for all she knows he wants to kill Jack. Not that he’s going to succeed but she suspects that Jack’s immortality is something that is better kept between the three of them, no need to offer up a torture method after all.

But why was she here? Was the man using her against Jack or was he trapping everyone that knew him?

She has to get out because if it is a trap he’ll walk right into it.

They were coming, she knows, but she’s not just waiting.

Not that she could see a way out.

*~*

‘Sorry, Doc, did you just say kidnapped?’

‘Yeah, she left after you and apparently managed to find trouble even when there isn’t and she is now missing. So let’s go.’

‘Right.’

‘Wait, Steve, you can’t.’

In all honesty Jack had actually managed to forget he was surrounded by people, which was probably not a good thing; in fact he’d forgotten that there was a possibility that they weren’t worthy of his trust. And if they weren’t than they shouldn’t know about Rose or the Doctor, than they shouldn’t be face to face with the last of the Time Lords – God only knows what they’d do with that information. This is the second time today he’s managed to lose sight of his surroundings – his teachers at the Time Agency, if they were still alive that is, would be appalled.

And really he wishes they’d stop calling him Steve.

‘What do you mean I can’t.’

‘If she’s been taken in broad daylight it means the General had her taken for some reason, perhaps because she knows you or just because she was in the wrong place. I’m sorry but there’s no getting into the factory and if she is in there, if he has taken her, that you will not see her again, for there is no escaping from that place either. Most likely she’s dead. I’m sorry but you can’t go.’

‘You listen to me that is _my_ friend they’ve got in there and it’s making me very angry, and you don’t want to stand in my way when I’m getting _this_ angry. Who are these people anyway Captain?’

‘Euhm well apparently these are old friends of mine.’

‘Apparently?’ ‘

‘Can’t actually remember meeting them, not that it matters.’

‘And Steve?’

‘Me it would seem, let’s go.’

‘No, didn’t you hear me, you can’t go, Steve.’

‘Jack, my name is Jack. And I don’t care that it’s practically impossible, I am not leaving her in there. Besides aren’t you supposed to be fighting this guy? You must have a way in, you said so yourself you have a man on the inside.’

‘True.’

‘So you know how to reach him, otherwise what is the point of him.’

‘Even if you could get inside, which is not a guaranty, you won’t get out, it’s a suicide mission. If she is alive than she is bait, which means that she will be in the most guarded place of the factory, you’re not going to find her. She’s a lost cause.’

If there were any words that should not be spoken in the vicinity of the Doctor those were definitely number one with a bullet. In fact they were words that shouldn’t be spoken in his vicinity as well but Jack figures that letting the Doctor give a speech – which could be quite terrifying at times – was probably the way to go.

‘Listen to me, very carefully, that is my friend, my companion, you are talking about. I brought her here; I promised her mother she would be safe, she is _my_ responsibility. So don’t sit there and tell me she is a lost cause as I see it the only lost cause here is you. You, Amaria, have just lost any help this Doctor would have offered you. Let’s go Captain.’

Jack wonders, briefly, if he was once like that. If these were his friends, and if he had sat among them once, had he too deemed someone else’s friend not worth saving? Had he perhaps allowed someone to die because he didn’t think she could be saved?

‘Steve…’

‘Jack.’

‘Jack, you can’t go, you’re not going to find her. You’re our friend and we’ve only just gotten you back, you can’t just leave us here. Please.’

‘I am getting my friend, I’m sorry I’m not your friend, not anymore.’

He leaves here there; he leaves them there, his possible old friends, and simply walks away. He wonders, briefly, if this is what happened so long ago, if he had left them standing here as well, gone and then had his memories erased so he wouldn’t have to remember. Amaria might have been the only person in the entirety of the universe who could not only tell him _why_ he couldn’t remember but _what_ he couldn’t remember as well.

It doesn’t matter, not anymore, Rose is more important.

Perhaps there are things in our lives that should never be remembered.

 

*~*

In retrospect their biggest mistake was running in _without_ an actual plan.

Well they had a plan, obviously, but it wasn’t a very good one; not to mention the fact that the Doctor had the bad habit of coming up with a plan and then not telling him _all_ the details. Regardless of what they _should_ have done what they did was simply run in and now they are trapped; though admittedly he’s not sure if they’ve been captured or are just lost.  What he does know is this: wherever they are its underground, isolated and – though this is just an assumption or more precisely a _hope –_ soundproof. What’s worse is that, as far as he can tell, there is no _actual_ way of getting out of here, apart that is from going back out the way they came in, which would mean exposing themselves to the armed soldiers that had suddenly shown up. And that would mean the possibility of getting shot and sure he can’t die but it doesn’t mean he actually _wants_ to get hurt.

But it does seem as if _that_ will be their only way out.

If he can distract them, either by actually walking outside or by dying and then coming back, the Doctor can use the confusion to get out. It’s not the best plan he’s ever had – it’s not the worst either so that’s something at least – but it is the _only_ plan he has.

‘Alright, Doc, I’m going to distract them, you go and find Rose.’

‘Captain you’ll be dead.’

‘Well isn’t that the point? I mean if you can die and still be alright at the end of isn’t it preferable that I do it as opposed to you who _can_ die?’

‘Captain…’

‘Look we don’t have time for this, I’ll be fine.’

‘You’ll still die, you won’t stay dead, but you’ll still die. I can’t wait for you to come back.’

‘That’s the point, I’m the distraction, you are going to use that time to get away. I’ll see you later, I know I will.’

‘How?’

‘Because it’s the only plan we have.’

He could say ‘because I trust you’ but he doesn’t and now is definitely not the time to have this conversation. The older man won’t leave him here, this Jack knows, if only because Rose would throw a fit. It doesn’t matter either way, this is the only way to get out of here and they have to find her because god only knows what they do with their prisoners in this place.

‘There has to be another way.’

‘There isn’t, go off and find Rose while I distract the guards. I’ll meet you at the Tardis and afterwards we’ll go somewhere else. Somewhere with a beach and quite for once.’

‘Alright.’

This is the moment in the movies – at least the ones he’s seen – that the two main characters have some kind of meaningful conversation and say the things they never dared to say before, apologize for things done in the past. Jack’s always felt that is somewhat wrong because if you have to wait until you’re going to die to apologize it probably means you only did it because it’s the end and not necessarily because you meant it.

‘I’ll see you in hell Doc.’

He runs out then, distraction complete, and he discovers quite soon that these soldiers are of the shoot first ask questions later type. Not that one can ask questions later if one shoots first of course, unless they’re like him and they can’t die and Jack’s not sure if there is someone else like him out there.

He doesn’t scream when they shoot him.

He doesn’t see the point.


	8. Chapter 7

‘You, little girl, must mean a lot to them. Most people just leave their loved ones here, most never try to save them.’

The first time she heard ‘the voice’ she thought she was going crazy, she’s not sure how long she’d been here but she’d come to the conclusion that nobody would ever come. And then she’d heard it, a voice clear as day and she’d thought: ‘well this is it Rose, you’ve finally lost it.’ As it turns out however it was a guard – or perhaps the leader – had come to talk to her, or taunt more precisely, but she couldn’t see him and she couldn’t make out where the voice came from. It was odd. So were the words for that matter, she’d assumed they were using her as bait to catch Jack – or Steve – but this guy, whoever he was, seemed almost surprised that he would come for her.

Maybe he assumed it would take longer for them to come.

If he did then he definitely didn’t know the Doctor or Jack for that matter but than this person had called Jack Steve and perhaps Steve _was_ the kind of guy to leave his friends in here to die. She doesn’t know and she’s almost afraid to find out. It’s a strange thing to imagine someone you love as another person – a person she’s never known and never will – somebody with friends and a whole other live she isn’t privy too. She knows he’s had a lot of them, if only short ones, and she also knows she doesn’t really know his name, but it’s strange to be presented with someone who knows her friend as someone else.

‘Nothing to say, dear?’

‘I am not your dear and what are you too big of a coward to let me see you?’

‘It won’t make a difference if you see me; you’ll never get out anyway.’

‘If it doesn’t make a difference than why are you hiding?’

‘Your friends have come to save you but they won’t be able to, if they can get in they’ll never get out.’

‘You don’t know them.’

‘You don’t know my facility, nobody has ever escaped.’

‘And you don’t know the Doctor.’

He’s gone than, or at least she assumes he is for he doesn’t speak again. What scares her most is the fact that she didn’t see him, that she could run into him later and not know. She prefers seeing her enemies, even if they scared her, because than at least she’d know what to watch out for.

It will all be alright, she thinks, the Doctor is coming.

They will not stop until they save her.

Still, she thinks, of all the times to forget her phone in the Tardis she chose _today._

*~*

 

There was of course a flaw in their – Jack’s – plan.

The Doctor would be the first to admit that a plan that included having one of them die – even if it was just for a while – was not a very good one to begin with but still there were things they should have considered. Like, for instance, that even if Jack managed to distract them it would only be for a moment and that the soldiers would follow him, or the fact that he’d have to run past Jack’s body and leave him there. Everything in him rebelled at the thought of leaving someone he loved behind but if he stayed than it would all have been for nothing.

There was a part of him that was oddly grateful that Jack was immortal.

Not just because he could get hurt and not be lost but because he’d last longer. It was strange and selfish and he’d never say it out loud, but he was almost grateful for a friend that would last longer than average humans would. He felt guilty for even thinking it for he knows, he knows, that it will be a painful and long life for Jack, a life he wasn’t meant to live, but he can’t help it.

Still despite anything he feels, and the knowledge that he will come back, leaving him there is just plain wrong.

He’ll find Rose, just like Jack wanted, and then he’d go to the Tardis and wait for him there. And if he didn’t show he’d come back in to get him – and perhaps using the Tardis to get inside this facility would have been a smarter plan now that he thinks about it – and then they’ll go off to another world. One with a beach just like Jack wanted, though for the life of him the Doctor couldn’t figure out why he wanted a beach.

Jack trusted him to get Rose, he trusted him to wait for him.

He will not let him down.

*~*

 

He wakes gasping for the air that escapes him, clutching his chest, and, quite clearly, alone.

It takes a moment for him to find his bearing again, to remember what happened and where exactly he is and when he does he’s grateful that they seem to have left him behind. If they hadn’t, if they hadn’t assumed he was gone – and really who wouldn’t – than he would definitely be captured or shot again. And that is not something he wants to experience again anytime soon, ever if he can help it but if he keeps traveling with the Doctor _that_ probably won’t be possible.

At least, he thinks, there seems to be no headache this time, or he’s just gotten used to it.

If he has than it sort of scares him, it scares him that this thing – whatever it is because he still doesn’t fully comprehend it – could change him so quickly. Sure it’s for the better, anything is better than those stupid headaches, but that doesn’t mean he has to _like_ it. And then he wonders ‘what else will this thing change about me? What else?’ If it only takes three times – or four he hasn’t completely figured out that dream thingy, he _could_ have died then but he’s not sure so it doesn’t count – for it to change a little what will happen after a hundred? A thousand? Will he still be him, human and Time Agent from the future, or will he turn into something else? Is he still human?

Too many questions and not enough answers, he’d ask the Doctor but he’s not sure even he knows.

He seemed just as confused as him.

Because that’s what he is something new, something that hasn’t been seen before – he thinks – something they don’t know anything about. And it scares him. Not that he’ll ever admit that.

He heard the music again as well when he woke, the strange melody he can’t quite describe.

Maybe he’s just imagining it.

It is somewhat comforting, in an odd way, that this way he’ll be able to protect those he loves better. He’ll be able to act as a distraction and survive the craziest situations. For nobody, no matter how smart, will assume their human opponent can’t die. It would be a great element of surprise.

This is not the moment to think about this however.

He has to get to the Tardis.

*~*

 

‘Rose!’

She hears him before she see shim, not that that is very difficult considering the cell she finds herself in and she’s grateful even if it has taken him a while to get here. Someday, she thinks, somewhere in the whole universe he will manage to take them to a planet where they won’t almost die. Someday.

‘Doctor! I’m here! Get me out!’

The sound of the sonic screwdriver is unmistakable and before she knows it she’s in his arms and _safe._ When she was little, young and afraid in the dark, she used to wish someone would come to save her, but nobody but her mother ever came. But now she knows somebody will always come, just like she knows that the monsters are actually real.

‘Where’s Jack?’

‘He’s distracting the guards, so that I could find you and get us out of here. He’s meeting us at the Tardis.’

‘Doctor we can’t just leave him here!’

‘We’re not, we’re going to the Tardis and if he’s not there yet we’re using her to pick him up. Come on.’

He takes her hand in his, just like the first time, and says ‘Run.’

She smiles at that.

 

*~*

 

There are certain moments in live that define us, that determine who we are and who we are not.

At least that’s what his mother used to say, years ago – or years into the future – before his brother died and the world went to hell. He supposes it was her way to tell him that everything we did, every choice we made, defined us. After his brother died she never said it again, but then she didn’t say much of anything anymore – he suspects he could read dozens of things in her silence but none of them matter because he doesn’t know what she meant. She dies a few months later, of grieve Jack suspects, and he was left with nothing and he’d know, young as he was, that it was all his fault.

That has nothing to do with the situation he finds himself in.

It is however, oddly enough, the only thought that comes to mind as he runs through the hallways trying to find a way out. It’s a maze really, hallway after hallway, doors and even more hallways and how the hell is he supposed to find a way out? Even if he does find a way out, which seems almost like a miracle at this time, how is he supposed to know if Rose and the Doctor did? He supposes it doesn’t matter, if he can make it to the Tardis he can convince the girl to help him get the Doctor.

They really should have thought their plan through.

And perhaps inject Rose – and him to – with some kind of GPS tracking device, there has to be one out there. He would use his watch to find her, that’s what it was for after all, but it broke a while back and though he’s not sure what’s wrong with it he can take an educated guess. He would get himself another one, except that would involve going to the Academy or at least finding another Time Agent and that’s not a good plan, not at all.

Perhaps the Doctor will now how to fix it, assuming of course he ever finds a way out of this maze of hallways.

 

*~*

 

‘Doctor I think we need to try something else.’

‘Why?’

‘Because this is the fourth time we passed my cell.’

And she’s right, of course she is, but he’s not sure what else they can do. If he didn’t think it was impossible – because he was quite sure they weren’t on a ship – than he’d say the hallways were changing on him. He assumes though that somebody is messing with them, bringing them back to where they began, or perhaps he’s just lost.

‘Hands in the air!’

Lost and surrounded, or so it would seem, and he honestly has no clue where they came from – whoever build this facility and its security system definitely knew what he was doing.  It’s almost as if they’re inside a program that somebody designed, a prison with no escape route because it didn’t exist. He doesn’t actually believe that but it is as good an explanation as any other.

But they have guns, and big ones too, and unlike Jack Rose can actually die.

So hands in the air it is.

‘Show yourself or are you afraid?’

‘I am not afraid of a simple Doctor.’

‘I didn’t say you were afraid of me, just of something. Afraid of being shot by your own man if they truly see you.’

‘I am not afraid of anything.’

‘You should be, you should definitely be afraid of _me._ You should not have taken my friend and you should count yourself lucky that I have yet to find you. Someday I will make you pay.’

‘Only someday, some threat.’

‘It’s not a threat, it’s a promise.  I know what will happen and someday you’ll see me again and you’ll know it will be your end. I suggest you run now, while you still can.’

‘Shoot them.’

He wishes he could intervene, chase down this person and get rid of him, for what he did to Rose and Jack – and to save the planet – but he knows he cannot. Some futures need to happen, most things can’t be tempered with, and the people will overthrow him, but not now.

But someday he will come back to look him in the eye.

First, however, they have to escape.


	9. chapter 8

Jack would never be able to explain how he made it out, not even to himself.

But he did and when he found that the Doctor and Rose hadn’t made it out yet – and considering that goddamn maze who would – he’d convinced the girl to go to them and get them out. And just in time too since it appeared as though they were about to be shot, which would not have ended as well as him being shot. Then they’re together, laughing and joking, for the first time since they left the satellite and Jack feels _free_ and _happy._

Which is why Jack doesn’t want to talk to the Doctor, not right now at least.

He knows they have to, and they will later, but for now he just wants to be happy they escaped. Besides what could the Doctor say to him? It did not appear as if he knew what was going on either and Jack didn’t want maybe’s or possibilities, he wanted facts and if the Doctor couldn’t give those than perhaps he should say nothing at all. That would be better. He ignores the voice in the back of his mind that tells him that if the Doctor doesn’t know than nobody knows and that would mean that he’ll never have answers.

‘We need to talk Captain.’

‘Not today, not now, tomorrow maybe, whenever tomorrow is. Right now I just want to take a shower and sleep.’

The Doctor says nothing, just like Jack had expected, and he’s grateful for that if nothing else.

The picture, the one Amaria had shown him to prove he was their friend – or had once been a long, very long time ago – was in his pocket and he’s not sure how he got it but he did. She must have given it to him, though he’s not sure when, and he wonders if she meant it as a goodbye or as something else. It matters little he supposes, he’s never going back which she might have realized.

Because the truth was it didn’t matter.

Even if she managed to explain their friendship to him, even if she told him what they had gone through, it still wouldn’t matter. Because he couldn’t remember and as such he couldn’t feel anything for her, not even something as simple as friendship. The truth was, even if he wished to deny it, whoever it was that had known her – whether it was friend or enemy – he was long dead.

Steve might look like him, act and talk like him, but it wasn’t him, not anymore.

It was time to let him go.

Even if he couldn’t remember him.

*~*

 

There is no way that anybody, not even Captain Jack Harkness, could fall asleep so fast after the day they’ve had.

Or the couple of days they’ve had – time travel could be rather confusing at times.

The lights in his room are out though and she suspects it’s possible he just wants to be alone, or that he’s trying to sleep and perhaps she should leave him alone, at least for tonight. But there’s a part of her that is convinced that no matter what he shouldn’t be alone right now, even if she can’t explain why. Somewhere, somehow, all of it was he fault; she had been the one to give him live – even if she can’t actually remember doing it – even if it wasn’t really her.

‘Jack?’

‘Rose that you?’

‘Yeah, I’m sorry did I wake you?’

‘No, come here.’

She lies down next to him, head on his chest, his arms circling around her. She should say something, she knows she should, but she can’t think of what to say, or how to make him understand that she hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. Perhaps she doesn’t need to, perhaps he already knows, or he hasn’t thought about it.

‘Are you alright? Did they hurt you?’

‘No, they didn’t.’

‘Jack?’

‘Yeah Rose.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘It’s all my fault, if I hadn’t looked into the heart of the Tardis then this wouldn’t have happened and you’d be alright.’

‘Rose if you hadn’t done that the Doctor and I would both be dead. Besides you did nothing wrong, everybody in your shoes would have done the same. It’s not your fault.’

She’s not sure if she believes him, not even sure if he believes it himself, but perhaps she should let it go. Even if he thinks it was her fault there was nothing to be done about it now, and he does make an excellent point if she hadn’t done it they’d all be dead – except for her far away alone on eath.

She could ask a million questions about the planet and his immortality.

Now is not the time for that.

‘Are you and the Doctor going to be alright?’

‘Yeah, in time. Go to sleep now.’

*~*

 

Rose slept then, peacefully, but he did not.

He was awake for hours, hovering somewhere between sleeping and being awake. He suspects some part of him was waiting, waiting to see if the Doctor would show up, waiting to see if the man spoke the truth when he said he didn’t hate him. The Doctor used to that in the before, climb in bed with them and wait – he suspects, has always suspected, that the alien doesn’t sleep and maybe he doesn’t need to – for them to wake up.

It’s not until after the man shows up that he finally falls asleep.

In the back of his mind he wonders suddenly if he still needs to sleep, if perhaps his new-found immortality will mean that he doesn’t need to sleep just something he wants to do. It doesn’t really matter he suspects.

The Doctors hands brushes against and he realizes this is the closest they’ve been in weeks.

_Yes Rose,_ he thinks, _we’re all going to be just fine._

*~*

‘So, where to now?’

The question is always the same, the situation slightly different, and the answer always new.

‘Well Doc, I’m voting for somewhere we don’t almost die, but that seems like an impossible task. I’d still like to go to a beach though.’

It’s strange how quickly things went back to the before, how quickly they went back to being Jack, Rose and the Doctor.

‘Hey guys Mickey just called, he says he needs something.’

‘And what kind of help does Rickey need?’

‘Mickey, and he said something about a school with a lot of strange activity, he gave me the address and he’s meeting us there.’

‘Alright then, let’s go.’

‘Wait, wait, wait, Doc how are we going to get inside a school? I mean we don’t look like we still need to go to school.’

‘Don’t worry Captain I have the perfect plan.’

‘Why does that scare me?’

A grin is the only answer he gets.


	10. Chapter 9

When he lands, wherever or whenever that is, he lands in the middle of what he suspects is December.

At the very least it’s freezing which, considering he’s only wearing a t-shirt, is rather problematic. He has many problems right now, like for instance the fact that he has gotten separated from his friends yet again, or the fact that he’d somehow gotten sucked in the void and ended up here, wherever here was. Still first things first and the cold is definitely his biggest problem now, he doesn’t particularly want to find out how long it will take before he freezes to death. The smartest thing to do at the moment is to first find some kind of coat to wear, then try to find out when and where he is and then find a way to contact the Doctor.

He should do this quick because people are starting the stare.

Thankfully it doesn’t appear as though there are many people out and those that see him might simply assume that he is slightly mad – which he supposes he is. Upon closer inspection wherever he’s landed has to be the 19th century, considering the clothes and the carriages. Which means that not only is he not wearing a coat to protect him from the cold weather, there is the small matter of the clothes that aren’t from this time and oh yeah the money that is from the future. Perhaps by the time he’s found a coat, which might take a while, the Doctor will have found him and dragged him home.

Except there is the possibility they think that this time he really is dead.

Nobody had, after all, been sucked into the void before, especially not someone like him. And he’s not sure how  he didn’t end up spending all of eternity stuck in it with Daleks, but somehow him falling through the void had ended with him in – what he thinks is Cardiff – the 19th century. He supposes he should be somewhat grateful for that, except he isn’t because he’s still trapped and there is still no actually way home.

This is all the Doctor’s fault.

It had, after all, been the Doctor who landed them a full century before the time they wanted to be and had put them in the path of Queen Victoria. It had been him - and perhaps Jack should take some of the blame for this one as well – who’d pissed her off to such an extent she actually banished the three of them from England forever. And then created Torchwood apparently.

If the Doctor had just gotten the time correct then none of this would have happened.

He’d be inside the Tardis, safe and happy.

When the Doctor gets here, because he will come for him Jack has no doubt about this, Jack will give him a piece of his mind. For now all he can do is wait and wrap himself in the warm coat he found – alright so he stole it, it’s not like he can buy it with money from the future – and try to figure out when and where he is. Not for the first time he wishes his vortex manipulator still worked but as it didn’t he’d have to wait.

He’s not exactly a man of patience.

He finds a newspaper, discarded on the ground and the date makes him sort of pause.

December 31, 1869.

Somewhere far away, where he can’t hear it, a rift closes, a building blows up and a Tardis fades away.

*~*

The moments she figures out what’s going to happen she creams.

Not that that will do anything, she can’t reach them after all, standing far above them looking down – and she’s still not sure how they managed to convince her to stay in here while they executed their plan – and all she can do is watch. Jack falls then, slips away, towards the void and she screams; he doesn’t, not really, but he does look at her and smiles. Like he’s trying to reassure her, tell her that everything will be alright.

He can’t know that though because if he falls in the void he’ll just be gone.

There’s no way to stop it, he falls, the wall closes, and she leans against it fighting tears.

The Doctor doesn’t scream though, he doesn’t do anything but stand there in silence, staring at the wall. Devastated, yes, but determined as well, as if he’s somehow looking for a solution already. Not that she’s sure there is a solution, because it’s not like anybody’s actually fallen into the void before. He’s holding her then, suddenly, and pulling her away and she has this feeling, deep inside, that she should be fighting and trying to get back to the last place she saw Jack but she doesn’t.

She doesn’t want to leave him but she’s not sure if he’ll come back.

Maybe they just have to go and get him.

They’re in the Tardis then, doors locked and everything, and though it reminds her of other times he’s done this, this time the Doctor is not leaving, he’s still there. Maybe, she thinks desperately, he isn’t the one who decides to close the doors, maybe it’s the Tardis herself and what does it even matter who closes the door? Just the fact that it is closed matters. She’s not leaving him here, a part of her acknowledges that the Doctor might be trying to find Jack but she’s not listening to that part, she just wants to go back.

‘Doctor we can’t leave him here!’

‘I know, Rose, I know. But wherever he is right now it isn’t there, and he isn’t coming back on his own we have to find him.’

‘So where is he? What happened to him? Doctor!’

He’s not meeting her eyes which usually either means he’s about to trick her into safety or he doesn’t have the answer.

‘I’ll find out.’

‘How are we going to find him if we don’t know what happened? How do you know there is something left to find.’

‘There is, there has to be. I’ll find him.’

The Doctor will find him, she tells herself, he’ll tear the universe apart and find him, the alternative is just not something she wants to contemplate.

*~*

 

6 days, four hours, twenty-three minutes and who knows how many seconds, that’s how long he’s been trapped in 1870.

And he still doesn’t really understand what happened.

He does know this though: he can’t go home, can’t travel through time, and has to wait. The only device he had that could time travel is busted and his only communication device – a cellphone Rose bough him in the 21st century – is in his jacket, which is still lying on his bed in his room in the Tardis. He really should have taken it with him because these kinds of things – separation and loneliness and such – only happen when he forgets these things.

So he waits, in the tavern of course because where else would he, Captain Jack Harkness, wait.

But eventually it closes too and he has no choice but to walk – if he stays here much longer he will have to think about getting some kind of job because he can’t keep living like this – and he thanks the heavens that the coat he stole had some money in it. It’s not right stealing a wallet and perhaps the person who he stole it from needed it but then he’s a time agent from the 51st century stuck in the 1800’s he thinks he’s earned the right to steal one miserable wallet.

There’s a child, a boy, standing in the road, and he hears the horses coming quickly.

He’ll save him, of course, and he’ll be find, he just hopes he doesn’t die – or if he does it isn’t anywhere near people – but he can’t leave the boy to die. The good thing is, he supposes, is that humans will believe almost every explanation for unbelievable things, so when he doesn’t die he can talk his way out of it. It’s alright, he assures the driver and he walks away, waving away the mother’s gratitude.

He really should have known things wouldn’t go his way.

Should have realized, through all his training that someone was watching him, should have realized that someone would have _noticed_ he didn’t die when he should have. Should have seen the man lurking in the shadows, following since mentioning briefly he’s looking for the Doctor and a blue box and had a very strange, but intriguing talk with Charles Dickens of all people.

Should have, but he was so focused on waiting for the Doctor and Rose that he didn’t.

Maybe that great training from the Time Agency isn’t so great.

He feels the cold gun press against the back of his neck and closes his eyes.

Here we go.

 

*~*

 

If he had any idea of what exactly had happened he would have fixed it by now.

But he didn’t know what happened so he didn’t know what to do next. If he could only figure out what had happened to the Captain then he could just fix it. But he can’t figure out what happened, mostly because he doesn’t know much about the void and there is nobody to ask, besides even if he did know more about the void he still doesn’t understand all that much about Jack’s immortality.

He knows Jack’s immortality came from the heart of the Tardis that they’re connected and she loves him.

And so the only thing he can do is pray that his girl has some way of finding him.

If he could only figure out a way to have the Tardis to that than everything would surely be alright, but apparently his girl couldn’t find Jack either, so they were stuck. Which is why, he admits, he’s so restless and worried at the moment, because for once he doesn’t actually know what to do next, not even close, and he has no idea who to ask for answers.

At least Rose is asleep, or he thinks she is, in Jack’s room waiting for him to come back.

Jack’s not dead; he can’t, because the man can’t die. That’s what he has to keep telling himself and Rose, convince the world that that is what happened, even if a part of him is worried that going into the void might have killed him anyway, despite his immortality. He could be dead, lost to the world, or stuck in the void, where he could never be reached, or maybe, hopefully, he fell out somewhere.

Hopefully somewhere in Cardiff, near the rift.

The Tardis moves then, taking him somewhere else and he hopes it means she’s found him and is bringing them to where they need to go.

Surely it’s alright, the Tardis has never brought him to the wrong place – but never, Jack would say, to the actual right place either.

He ignores the things Jack _would_ say if he were here.


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to point out that the prologue takes place just before this chapter.

He counts the seconds, minutes, hours, days that pass.

He’s still entirely convinced that he’s wrong, that his counting is off, that he really has no idea how long he’s been here, but at least he can guess. The real problem with trying to figure out how long he’s been here, Jack figures, is that he’d been locked in here, dead, for who knows how long. As such he’s lost some time, and he doesn’t know how long and he’s not sure if it matters. Still he counts, because there’s not much else to do and as such he figures it’s approximately three days later that he talks to the girl again. He’s not sure where he is, or even how he came to be here, but wherever he is it isn’t normal: somehow he’s getting water and food but he has yet to see anybody.

Perhaps they don’t know what to do with him, or maybe they’re trying to break him to get information.

It will take more than locking him in a room on his own to get him to talk.

Especially if it’s about the Doctor and Rose.

He won’t be here long enough for them to break him anyway, if the Doctor doesn’t come – which he will – he’ll escape, simple. Except of course things are never that simple.  In the three days since he’s last talked to the girl – not to self: get her name – he’s gone over every inch of his cell, even the places he probably shouldn’t be able to reach.

‘You never told me your name.’

‘Does my name matter?’

‘Probably not but I’d like to know what to call you, since you know you appear to be the only living soul in the neighborhood. Besides if you are the last person I’ll ever talk to I’d like to have a name.’

‘You can call me Lila.’

‘Lila, I’m Jack.’

‘Listen Lila, do you have any idea where we are? Or who is keeping us here? Or you know why?’

‘I think the reason is different for everyone that comes here, maybe you’ve done something to upset him. I’ve heard whispers, mostly when somebody new comes, one of the things I heard was Torchwood.’

‘Torchwood.’

Of course, Jack thinks, of course this happened. Torchwood was the reason he was trapped in the past in the first place, so of course that’s the reason he’s in this cell. He suspects this is somehow his own fault, he was after all the one to talk with Charles Dickens – seriously weird – about the Doctor, so of course somewhere heard him.

When he gets back to the Tardis he’ll have to remind the Doctor not to piss of anymore royals.

‘You know it?’

‘Yes, Lila, I do.’

‘Then do you know why you are here? ‘

‘I think so or at least I have my suspicions. Why are you here?’

‘Perhaps I have done something wrong.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Or I’m just different.’

‘Different, you mean not from this world? As in Alien?’

‘Most people wouldn’t think of that first, where are _you_ from?’

‘I’m a human but from the far-away future, far away from this earth. What about you?’

‘Far away, so far you could probably not comprehend it. You wouldn’t know it if I talked of it and I will never see it again.’

‘You will. I told you I have a friend that’s coming for me and he’s got this ship that can take you anywhere.’

‘How do you know he’s coming?’

‘Because he would never leave me behind.’

‘What if he can’t find you? What if he’s trying but he doesn’t know where you are? I mean we don’t even know where we are. Was he with you when you were captured?’

‘No.’

‘Then how will he find you.’

‘The Doctor can do many things that don’t seem possible.’

‘It will be easier for you if you just accept this is the end.’

‘Did the others who were here?’

‘No, most of them believed till the end, I suppose it’s a human thing. But nobody ever came. And nobody ever will.’

Jack’s not sure if there is an actual answer to that, something he can say to make her feel better, but even if there was he wouldn’t say it. The thing is, even if he wishes to ignore it, she has a point: the Doctor doesn’t know what happened to him so how is he supposed to find him? _He_ himself doesn’t truly understand how he got here or why, so how is the Doctor supposed to figure it out?

Perhaps Lila was right and nobody was coming.

Which meant he’d just have to escape.

*~*

 

On day Nine Jack decides that perhaps he should stop counting.

It is rather boring, not to mention quite possibly completely inaccurate, and really it’s far more interesting to talk to Lila – or whatever he real name is, he’s not stupid enough to believe she actually gave him her real name. She is however starved for companionship, who knows how long she’s been here all alone. He could be here forever, immortal as he is, if he doesn’t manage to escape, if he does he’ll probably be insane by the end of it. But then he suspects if he really is going to live forever – or at least for god knows how many centuries – he’ll probably be insane by the end of it anyway.

That or he won’t be able to remember anything.

He’s not sure what’s worse.

Lila thinks, though she too isn’t quite sure of her counting, that she’s been here for seven years, if not more. He’s already going slightly insane of boredom after seven days, god knows what he’ll be like if he has to stay here for _years._ But then he’s never actually been patient, he can’t sit still for too long, even when he was a child; that was, primarily, why the Time Agency attracted him so much. Because if he was a part of that he could go anywhere at any time, he wouldn’t have to sit still.

Lila however clearly has more patience then him.

She also has no hope left.

But he suspects she’s never had someone like the Doctor in her live, someone who would be willing to move heaven and earth to find a friend, someone who _could_ travel through time and space to find someone. And even though he knows – beyond a shadow of a doubt – that they are looking for him, he’s bringing to wonder if they _can._ Maybe he’s meant to be trapped here, maybe this is how things are supposed to be, and maybe he’s never meant to see his friends again.

Even if he isn’t meant to see them again he refuses to stay _here._

Escape from the dungeons with Lila is still plan A though, even if he doesn’t really have an idea how to get out – beyond steal the keys and run – but he’ll figure it out. He doesn’t tell her because there’s no point, because who knows how long it will take to get them out, who knows if he even can.

At least he’s not chained up anymore.

(How to escape your chains: lesson number fifty-five at the academy.)

*~*

 

_Rose dreams of shadows, dark as the night, of lights burning brighter than the sun._

_It’s in her she thinks, in her and around her and everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He’s lying in the darkness among the shadow; Jack_ is _one of the shadows. She is the light, shining too bright, and it’s too much, but there is nothing she can do to stop it so she continues to burn. There’s screaming, she thinks, and crying and pain and loss._

_Jack’s lying in the darkness, far beyond her reach._

_Rose dreams of the Doctor, dancing with her, through light and dark, through sun and shadows. She dreams of blue ghost on Christmas eve and laughter that goes on forever._

She wakes crying, silent tears running down her face, and she tells the Doctor.

He says nothing.

*~*

In the end for all his planning and thinking his escape, approximately 6 months later, is so simple he can’t comprehend how it even worked.

They just got lucky he supposes.

Or it was done on purpose; allow him to escape so he can lead them to the Doctor – not that he can actually do that – which is not something that would happen. Even if he _knew_ where the man was he’d never lead these people to him, not in a million years, because Rose was with him and he needed to protect her. He doesn’t care if it’s some kind of a trap because they’re outside and Lila is laughing and _free_ , and now at least he can find a way to send a message to the Doctor.

Though he doesn’t know how.

As it turns out it’s not six months, at least not according to the newspaper, but more like ten, which really is a lot. This probably means that it is a trap, that they are using him to get to the Doctor, and that they are following him. They won’t succeed though, because he’s Captain Jack Harkness, Time Agent from the 51st century, a con-man, immortal, a hero, a warrior, if there’s one thing he knows it’s _escaping_ and _disappearing._

All they need to do is get to Lila’s ship and send a message to the Doc.

And if that doesn’t work he’ll fix the ship, simple.

They run.

It almost feels like home.

 

*~*

 

You’d think they’d be _too_ different to work together.

He’s a flirt, she’s not, and he’s an adventurer she just wants to go home. And still despite all of that they work perfectly and he thinks, briefly, it’s because there’s nobody else and you don’t need to like the same things. Besides he too wants to go home, it’s just that his home isn’t his home planet but the Tardis and the Doctor and Rose.

He’s trapped in time, she’s trapped on earth.

She tells him, in along an elaborate story he didn’t _fully_ comprehend, that she was from a far off planet on a trip with her people and they’d crashed. They’d put her in an escape pot, to save her, and she’d ended up in Cardiff. That’s where they’d picked her up, those Torchwood people, and she’d been trapped. They’re probably dead, she says, the people she came with, because if they weren’t they would have come for her.

She doesn’t know exactly where her ship is but she can find it.

He decides not to ask too much about that.

He knows enough about different species to understand that he’ll probably never be able to understand her, not completely. Besides if she can find her ship then he can send a message and they can both go home. A part of him wants to convince her to travel with him for a while – he really does like her, she has this wicked sense of humor and she’s not afraid to argue with him – but he knows she won’t.

They’ll be safe inside her ship, even if they can’t get it to work.


	12. Epilogue

He should have known, from the beginning that _this_ is how it would end.

Because this is the way it _always_ ends.

There’s a girl – at least in this case – or more precisely somebody that looks like a young girl and he saved her live, together they travelled across the lands to their escape. They fought monsters and battles, and got involved in far too many historical moments to be comfortable with, and they lived together for _years._ In their search for her ship, crashed somewhere in Australia – at least they _think_ – it crashed in Australia.

They’ll make it too, the alien-girl and the immortal Captain, to a ship that won’t fly.

But it will send messages.

And then, at the end of the story, as they wait, as they think they’re safe, as Jack can imagine getting back to his home and helping his new best friend get back to her home – perhaps with a detour or two – they’ll be attacked. She’ll die then, lost and alone and far, far from home; and he’ll die too, trying to save her.

He won’t stay dead.

Later after he’s woken up and again and realized he was safe, after he’s somehow managed to give her a funeral, he’ll wonder if it’s always going to be like this. Is this, he wonders, what his future looks like? Is he doomed to live like this? To live, and grow, and make friends – or more – everywhere he goes and then watch them die, or let them go so he won’t have to and continue like that, alone, forever.

How many friends, loves, will he watch die before it’s his turn?

Does he want to know?

He sits there, on the beach not that far from her crashed ship, and he waits, staring and counting the stars at night. Alone, for the first time in years. He’d given her, Lila, hope, he’d promised he’d find her a way home. But in the end he hadn’t been able to defend her, not once, and she’d died – screaming, blood pouring, and tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. It’s the last thing about her he remembers, those screams; by the time he woke again she was dead.

She must have thought he was dead too.

She must have felt so alone.

This was all his fault, if he’d just left her where she was than she wouldn’t be dead now.

But she’d be lost and alone and scared.

She’d been so happy and alive on their travel, so curious about anything and everything. But she’d been free and she’d been grateful, and even though she was dead he’s glad that for a moment at least she was happy.

He wonders if the Doctor will ever come, if he isn’t doomed to wait here forever – he’s been walking the earth for five years already, he’s waited here in this small sea-side town for five more, he’s been alone without Lila for three weeks.

He hears the Tardis before he sees her.

A part of him wants to jump up, run happily to the Tardis, another wonders why the Doctor couldn’t show up just three weeks earlier. To save Lila, the alien girl far from home whose real name he’d never know, to take her home at the very least; but for that it was far too late.

So he waits sitting on the sand, staring at the ocean, waiting for Rose’s voice yelling his name, waiting to hold her in his arms again.

He felt so _lost_ and _tired_ and _angry_ and even _scared._

None of that matters he supposes.

He’s holding Rose soon enough, breathing in her scent – finally – and he sees him standing just a little before him. He wants to ask him to get back in his Tardis and just go back three weeks and pick him up then, but he can’t, all those lessons of Time and the consequences of changing one’s own timeline are pretty much unforgettable.

He can’t make him go back, he can’t save him, he can’t talk about it.

He smiles at Rose, all love and happiness, and she smiles back, delighted to see him.

‘Let’s go Captain.’

‘Yeah, let’s go.’

They walk into the Tardis, Rose’s hand in his, the Doctor by his side. He didn’t manage to do what he promised, he couldn’t save the girl that had in those years become his best friend, he couldn’t take her back home.

He couldn’t help her.

But at least he was home now and they were together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to point out that originally the story was supposed to be longer, it was supposed to have more about Lila and Jack and the waiting for the Doctor and Rose to show up, and their search for Jack. Unfortunatly my muze decided to take a permenant vacation from this fic and it got stuck here. I might write more about it later but it doesn't seem as though that will happen. 
> 
> But I did finish it even if it didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted it to.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for pamymex3girls story "Cracks in the surface"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/719594) by [mella68](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mella68/pseuds/mella68)




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